, Lo»d , 
Ncrthcliffis 

WAR 
BOOK ^ 





Class. 
Book_ 



Cogyriglit)^?- 



^ n 



CjOraRIGHT DEPOSm 



LORD NORTHGLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 



'yU-\Z^^AXc^ ■':...&, ^ GJjb'xMxL C^t~<V»^t8xi i/vtjP.'^-'^--^^-'*'*^ /pf^^-V i.'V'j^yirW, 

LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S 
WAR BOOK 



WITH CHAPTERS ON 
AMERICA AT WAR 



BEING A REVISED AND ENLARGED 
EDITION OF "AT THE WAR" 



NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



13|? 



COPYRIGHT, 1916, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



COPYRIGHT, 1917, 

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 

REVISED EDITION 



DEC 28i3i7 



PRINTED IN THE TJNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



©CI,A47971C 



TO MY MOTHER 



PREFACE 

This little contribution to the funds of the Red Cross 
has already earned between $25,000 and $30,000, the pub- 
lishers having generously given the profits to this best of 
causes. 

The profits of this American edition will be devoted to 
the American Red Cross, 

The book is the result of many visits to the Western 
War Fronts and neutral countries. The chapters are 
very largely composed of telegrams written amidst the 
"alarums and excursions" of war. 



NORTHCLIFFE. 



BRITISH WAR MISSION 
671 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 

October, 1917. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Americans at War 13 

Crossing the Atlantic in War-time 27 

The American Soldiers in France ...... 39 

What TO Send "Your Soldier" 51 

The Army of the Maple Leap 59 

A Civilian's Impressions of the War 77 

How It Feels in a Submarine, in an Aeroplane, in a 

Tank 93 

The Army Behind the Army 107 

The Women Are Splendld 125 

Before Verdun 131 

Life in Reims 145 

With the Italians 153 

Sir Douglas Haig 163 

JoFFRE 171 

Cadorna 177 

The British Soldiers in France 183 

The New Little Belgian Army 191 

Warplanes 203 

The War Doctors 211 



X CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Search for the Missing 229 

Neutral Glimpses 249 

I The Germans in Switzerland 249 

II Geneva 257 

III The Germans in Spain 265 

IV A Spanish Tour 275 



THE AMERICANS AT WAR 



LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S 
WAR BOOK 

THE AMERICANS AT WAR 

Since I have been in the United States — I arrived early 
in the month of June — I have seen the beginning of the 
growth of a war machine unequalled in the world's his- 
tory. The machine was built in the American way. As 
I watched the process I was reminded continually of the 
method of building the sky-scrapers whose roots are deep 
deep down in the rock that forms the Island on which 
New York stands. 

In watching the building of a sky-scraper, the unin- 
formed observer feels that the thing will never begin. 
For some time there is a blasting of rock, crowds of men 
appear with strange machines, nothing much seems to 
happen. Then, gradually but surely, a great steel skele- 
ton arises. 

The progress does not seem to be as rapid as it might 
be, until suddenly the passer-by finds to his astonishment 
that the exterior walls of the seventeenth or thirtieth 
story are finished, the lower stories being yet in skeleton 
form. There is another delay, and lo! the sky-scraper 
suddenly finished, and housing its ten or fifteen thousand 
busy workers. 

The American war machine was and, as I write, is 
still being built in the same way. 

From the staid British point of view the process was 
sometimes bewildering. There were delays, tolerances, 

13 



14 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

repetitions of European war blunders, criticisms, argu- 
ments, extravagant optimism and grave under-estima- 
tions. Sometimes at the end of a long day one looked 
back on the morning and could see no progress. But 
at the conclusion of every six days there was not only an 
advance, but sometimes a leap. 

The great giant of the West slumbered more or less 
uneasily for the first two and a half years of the war, he 
eventually woke with some unwillingness. Once awake 
with amazing celerity he was out and about, up and do- 
ing. He swiftly girded his armour and fashioned the 
club that should end the rule of despotism in Europe. 

Lookers-on and critics here in the United States were 
astonished to find that almost without public notice con- 
scription came into being. When it arrived, it worked 
as smoothly as though it had been in use since the Decla- 
ration of Independence. Again the giant paused awhile 
and people began to wonder what he was doing, but mean- 
while the streets became filled with Khaki. The stern- 
looking business men and professional beauties of photog- 
raphers' shops were replaced by clean-visaged officers and 
nurses. The parks were busy from dawn to dark with 
men in shirt sleeves at drill. Those trying to make busi- 
ness appointments by telephone found that So-and-so had 
gone to France or to an officers' training camp at Platts- 
burg or elsewhere. The war hourly became more and 
more a part of the visible public life. 

My American home is some miles out of New York 
City. When I took up my residence there in June last 
there were no signs of war about me. I went to Wash- 
ington and returned after the space of a few days. A 
vast camp, as big as ours at Witley in Surrey appeared 
at my doors as though it had grown by magic. 

This camp was not on the map so to speak ; it was not 



THE AMERICANS AT WAR 15 

one of the great cantonments that were built with light- 
ning speed. Of these soldier cities there are now sixteen 
finished or nearly so. They are no mere camps. There 
is a permanence about them that makes it difficult to 
realise that they are built in two score of days. A num- 
ber of them are being erected wisely in the sunny and 
comparatively stormless South, where the soldiers and 
more especially the flying men will be in full training 
during the whole winter. 

Let me describe one of these cities in the words of an 
English eye witness, one of the sixteen cities which will ac- 
commodate the first instalment (650,000 men,) gathered 
by conscription. These cities are tangible proof of the 
efficiency of American methods of organisation applied to 
war making. We asked and obtained permission to see 
one of the most rapidly finished. It happened to be two 
thousand miles from New York. It did not seem to con- 
cern those who extended the very cordial invitation that 
the journey was a long one ; it is regarded here as we look 
upon the journey from London to Newcastle (about 200 
miles) or London to Glasgow (less than 300 miles). 

Early in July there lay three miles outside San Antonio, 
Texas, a stretch of ground covered with a difficult kind 
of scrub or bush. On the 6th of July there appeared 
an army of between nine and ten thousand workmen of 
every known nationality, directed by young Americans 
of the Harvard and Yale type. 

The ten thousand arrived in every kind of conveyance, 
in mule carts, farm waggons, horse cabs, motors, and huge 
motor vans. At the end of the day's work, when the 
whistle had blown, the scene resembled that of some ec- 
centric elaborately-staged cinematograph film. 

Together with the army of ten thousand men came 
many kinds of semi-automatic machinery. The hard 



16 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

concrete roads in the United States are now made by- 
machinery with a thoroughness and permanence which 
should attract attention in Europe. In this new town out- 
side of San Antonio twelve miles of rail, twenty-five miles 
of road, thirty-one miles of water pipe, thirty miles of 
sewer were accomplished in forty-five days. 

The scale of wages is as surprising to Europeans as 
the energy expended. The average wage for all and 
sundry exceeded five pounds ($25) a week, carpenters 
getting twenty-six shillings ($6.50) daily. Nearly all ma- 
terial had to be brought from what appear to us vast dis- 
tances. As often as not the thermometer stood at 100 
degrees, yet the daily photographs taken by the contrac- 
tors show that progress was continuous, until on August 
25th a considerable part of the city was ready for oc- 
cupation. 

The strongly and comfortably built huts are all pro- 
vided with heating arrangements for the winter, and 
baths hot and cold are attached to each building; there 
are vast stores and office blocks, several post offices, a 
huge bakery, laundry, stables for thirteen hundred horses 
and mules, hospitals, schools; in all between twelve and 
thirteen hundred buildings. 

And what has been done in Texas was being done 
simultaneously in fifteen other parts of the country. 

Although Long Island is so close to New York and is 
one of the most fashionable country house districts in 
the United States, the site chosen near Yaphank for 
Camp Upton on Long Island, gave as much trouble as 
any other. A forest had to be cut down and the roots 
blasted out of the soil. Furthermore, the works were 
hampered by mosquitos to a degree that will be under- 
stood by those who have disturbed virgin soil in new 
places. 



THE AMERICANS AT WAR 17 

Americans have a prompt unexpected way of doing 
things which is pleasingly refreshing. One morning I 
read that all saloons within fives miles of Yaphank had 
been closed down. Nothing more said about it, no dis- 
cussion preceded the matter, there were no abstruse cal- 
culations as to compensation. The United States is at 
war; saloons are not good for war, close them down. 
That's all there was to it. 

These are a good-natured but a drastic people. One of 
their great war accomplishments is the stamping out of 
sedition. When I first arrived here it was common to see 
knots of rather bored-looking people round a wildly 
gesticulating man standing on what I believe is known as 
a soap box. I noticed the number of these orators grew. 
I stopped one evening to listen to one of them in the 
negro quarter; he was talking a lot of excitable rubbish. 
In one part of his discourse he evinced unexpected sym- 
pathy for the downtrodden Irish farmer, who is notably, 
by the way, among the most prosperous of farmers. 

The American Giant paused one day in his war prepa- 
rations, issued some kind of police order, and there was 
an end to pacificism. 

A shrewd British friend of mine who has lived here 
many years remarked the other day that it took a long 
time to get Uncle Sam into the War, but that it may take 
a much longer time to get him out. 

Already, after barely five months of preparation, the 
United States have close upon a million and a half sol- 
diers undergoing intensive training for their task. The 
Regular Army was brought up to its full strength 300,000 
by voluntary enlistment. The National Guard, a State 
Militia, was filled up by the same means until it numbered 
500,000. Then came the ballot for conscripts under the 



18 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

Conscription Act ; this gave between 600,000 and 700,000 
more. 

For the training and upkeep of this force and for the 
provision of all that it will require in the field, sums of 
money have been voted which make one's brain reel. 
For airplane construction $640,000,000 have been ap- 
propriated. Upon merchant shipbuilding $1,134,500,000 
are to be spent. A naval appropriation of $350,000,000 
for the building of destroyers has been commenced. 
One armour plate and projectile plant at South Charles- 
ton will soak up $22,000,000. In all, the war expenditure 
of the United States already amounts to well over 
$8,000,000 a day, and loans to Allies account for another 
$12,000,000 every twenty four hours. The war machine 
gathers momentum as its travels. Its ramifications are 
bewildering. Scarcely a day passes without some fresh 
and startling proof of its force. 

The American characteristics in war seem to be two, 
firstly, what looks like undue deliberation, and then, be- 
fore you are ready for it, as a bolt from the blue, a smash- 
ing blow. 

We know little of United States politics in Europe. 
Probably not one English or French reader in a score 
understands that the Democrats (Radicals) are in power 
and the Republicans (Conservatives) in opposition. The 
system so far is rather like our own, but the head of the 
nation is a President whose character appears to me to 
be a mixture of Scottish caution and tenacity with Ameri- 
can unexpectedness. 

Witness the reply to the Pope. When cables from 
Europe contained mealy-mouthed meanderings from 
Continental newspapers outlining all kinds of suggested 
temporising replies to his Holiness, suddenly came an al- 
together unexpected bang from the White House at 



THE AMERICANS AT WAR 1& 

Washington; the whole miasma of pacificism and all the 
rantings from soap boxes were at an end. My Republi- 
can friends, naturally critical of persons and things 
Democratic, shared the nation-wide joy in the Presi- 
dent's reply. As with the well-meant Papal peace of- 
ferings, so with the embargo. 

Well-meaning European statesmen have too long pro- 
vided the German armies with materials for making shot 
and powder and with food through greedy and gain- 
loving neutrals. The American mind wondered why. I 
went one day to have a look at an American transport 
sailing for Europe, in which the soldier boys clustered 
like bees in swarming time. Incidentally my guide showed 
me a great number of neutral ships loading up with grain 
for Germany. There came another bang from the big 
gxm at Washington. The ships are still here. 

I should not be surprised if they eventually helped to 
carry food to the American armies in France and to Bel- 
gium. I am very certain they will not carry one grain of 
wheat to Germany. The right of neutrals to prolong the 
war is not conceded by the United States. The Ameri- 
can mothers who are sending their boys to face subma- 
rines in the Atlantic and high explosives in the trenches 
have no sloppy sentiment for Sweden or Spain. They 
are sorry for Holland, but the motto "America first," 
though not perhaps always suited to an alliance, is un- 
doubtedly a formidable war weapon when put into opera- 
tion with the drastic suddenness characteristic of Ameri- 
can mentality in war time. 

Several times I have been asked by Americans, whO' 
are becoming almost as critical of themselves as we Eng- 
lish have always been of ourselves, whether there is not 
observable in the United States a lack of enthusiasm in 
the public demeanour towards troops parading or depart- 



20 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

ing. The same criticism has been made continuously in 
Great Britain in regard to the people and their army. 

It is quite true that an ordinary baseball game, or an 
Association football match at home, is more provocative 
of cheering and other forms of applause than the appear- 
ance of troops. Pictures of soldiers departing in the old 
wars make us believe that they were surrounded by en- 
thusiastic and yelling crowds. That does not appear to 
be the case now in any of the belligerent countries in 
which I have been since August, 191 4. Even the most 
€xcitable Italians go to this war with gravity and sobriety. 

The only really vociferous acclamation to troops that 
has come under my notice was in a neutral country whose 
■callous pro-Germanism has made it a by-word among na- 
tions. A cynical American who watched with me a 
squadron of cavalry passing at the trot and being vigour- 
ously applauded by a Spanish crowd remarked "The last 
thing these people mean to do is fight." 

American troops, whose physique is at present much 
the best in the war, are regarded by their onlookers with 
interest, affection and pride. Their mission is far too 
serious a one for wild hurra-ing such as we heard during 
the South African and the Spanish wars. Summed up 
in one word, the attitude of the American People and their 
soldiers seems to me to be. Earnestness. If any other 
word be necessary Thoroughness might be added. 

The world has heard something of the evolution of 
what is known as the U.S.A. or Liberty Air Engine. The 
full story of the development of this practical and now 
tested motor sums up many of the .most marked traits in 
the American war character. It is the product of en- 
thusiasm put to the right purpose. 

There is probably no more highly organised industry 
in the world than the manufacture of American motor- 



THE AMERICANS AT WAR 21 

cars. Despite the keen competition that has enabled 
Americans rich and poor aHke to have automobiles, co- 
operation and standardisation among the rival producers 
have intensified simplicity and eliminated waste. It is 
because of this that I am able to purchase in the United 
States for my own use an excellent four-seated landaulette 
for $i,ooo with electric lighting installation and self- 
starter. I have the choice of a number of types at that 
price and even less. 

The methods of the motor-car industry, which have 
given such marvellous results, are being adapted in regard 
to the Air Engine. Early in July I was invited to the 
Bureau of Standards in Washington to see the engine 
just after it had arrived from Detroit. In a room adjoin- 
ing the bench on which the motor rested was a machine 
for reproducing mechanical drawings, or blue-prints, by 
a highly ingenious form of rapid rotary printing. These 
drawings are being sent in thousands to makers of auto- 
mobiles all over the United States. 

The young men who had accomplished the construc- 
tion of the engine were the leading designers and engi- 
neers of the great competing motor-car and motor-van 
makers. All trade rivalry had been set apart, and they 
had thrown their united efforts into a magnificent piece 
of team-work, which will enable the United States to turn 
our air engines almost as rapidly as Mr. Ford multiplies 
his wonderful little cars. 

It is not pretended that these air engines are of the 
same quality as the best English or French war models. 
It was wisely foreseen here that the construction of 
motors so delicate would demand the training of thou- 
sands of skilled handworkers. Time is a vital factor in 
the situation, therefore it was resolved to produce an en- 
gine that could be manufactured in part in a thousand 



22 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

workshops and assembled at certain given points, as is 
done by Germany with her submarines. It is an engine 
designed for a certain specific air programme, the nature 
of which the Germans will learn in due course. 

Together with the manufacture of this air motor, which 
has now been tested in long flights at various altitudes, 
goes on the training in flight of a large number of eager 
and capable young men. Almost every steamer arriving 
from Europe brings more and more skilled airmen from 
the war-zone, French, American and English. Flying 
grounds in the United States are being extended continu- 
ously. They range now from Camp Borden in Canada, 
where young British officers are training American and 
Canadian fliers, to San Antonio, in Texas. Instruction 
in flying can continue without ceasing owing to the choice 
of so many suitable, because almost windless, climates 
for the camp installations. 

The enthusiastic outpourings of air amateurs and their 
cries of "One hundred thousand air-planes" have made a 
good many people sceptical as to American participation 
in the air fighting. But behind all that talk is already a 
vast accomplishment. The solid foundation has been 
laid of an air service backed by practically illimitable man- 
power and machine-power. Its fruits will be shewn as 
suddenly as came Conscription. Movement is going on 
as rapidly as possible in view of the thoroughness with 
which everything is being done. There has been a com- 
plete liaison with the Air Services of France and Eng- 
land. While no time has been lost, more careful consid- 
eration has been given to a definite plan of campaign. 

Since I arrived in the United States during the second 
week of June, I have kept a diary of war happenings. 
This I shall keep as a document of great historical inter- 
est. Never has any Democracy made such rapid prog- 



THE AMERICANS AT WAR 23 

ress in so vast an enterprise. The pace was accelerated 
every week. We were made acquainted in the course of 
four months with a series of war measures which would 
seem to be almost beyond the national power of digestion. 

It is easy to say that many of these measures might 
have been adopted a couple of years earlier, but De- 
mocracies do not work in that way. Even after the war 
had begun, we in England spent almost two years in dis- 
cussing whether we should have equality of sacrifice in 
regard to military service, and Canada was still debating 
the question until a few weeks ago. Each nation has to 
make its war preparations after its own fashion. No 
nation seems to learn much from any other. 

The American War Machine has been built in the 
American way. Maybe it will have its faults, but for 
all that it is the mighty sledge-hammer that will pulverise 
Prussianism. 



CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WAR-TIME 



CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WAR-TIME 

One thing the war has done for those who travel. It 
has restored to travelling the spice of adventure. Cross- 
ing the Atlantic had become before the war as tame and 
uneventful a business as taking the Subway or the Ele- 
vated to go down town. The war has changed all that. 

The greatest of the liners which made our Atlantic 
ferry the swiftest and most luxurious means of ocean 
transportation in the world have disappeared from their 
accustomed routes. Some will never return to them. 
They lie on the floor of the sea. Even now it is hard to 
think of the Lusitania without a pang at the heart. Other 
of the "floating palaces" which made their trips between 
the United States and England so punctually and steadily 
have been turned into hospital ships, transports, auxiliary 
cruisers. As for those which flew the German flag, they 
are either interned in the harbours of Allied or neutral 
countries, or else rotting in their home ports, rotting and 
rusting as part of the price which Germany has to pay al- 
ready for allowing the crazy and criminal ambition of 
Hohenzollerns and Prussian Junkerdom to break up the 
prosperity won by peace-methods and to substitute for it 
the widespread ruin caused by unsuccessful war. 

In the pre-war days, which seem so far off from us 
now, there were no more formalities to be faced before 
crossing the ocean than before crossing the road. One 
simply bought a ticket, learnt the time of departure, cabled 
to say the exact day and hour of arrival, went on board. 

27 



28 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

No questions asked, no papers needed beyond the steamer 
ticket. Passports were regarded as antediluvian, only 
required by those who travelled beyond the confines of 
civilisation, in the dominions of the Turkish Sultan or 
the Russian Tsar. 

In this fourth year of the struggle it has rightly been 
made difficult for any persons to cross the Atlantic who 
have not some good urgent reason for doing so. Such 
reason must be shewn before permission to take ship is 
granted. The journey from England to the United States 
in war-time begins, therefore, in the wooden houses 
built in the courtyard of the Foreign Office, London. 
Here full information must be given to officials, for the 
most part sympathetic, as to parentage, birthplace, busi- 
ness; grounds for desiring to travel; previous travel 
during the war period; and so on. If all goes well for 
the would-be voyager, he, or she, receives a passport, or, 
having one already, has it endorsed with a permit to leave 
England for American shores. 

Next those who are not travelling with diplomatic 
credentials must fill up the interrogatory of the steam- 
ship company. This is not less exhaustive than the offi- 
cial questionnaire. One has an uneasy feeling that they 
may be compared and any accidental discrepancy used 
against one. Some people are made so nervous by being 
"regarded with suspicion," as they term it, though really 
there is no need to put it in that way, that they begin to 
wonder whether they have not something to hide. They 
begin to be not quite sure about their own bona fides. 
There should, however, be no feeling of uneasiness or 
resentment caused by these indispensable precautions. 
Every one should be glad to find that precautions against 
spies are being systematically taken. Every one must 
recognise that it is necessary to limit the numbers using 



CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WAR-TIME 29 

the restricted service of liners which ply across the At- 
lantic in the fourth year of the war. 

Next comes the train journey to Liverpool, This is 
as fast as it was in peace-time, and as comfortable, ex- 
cept that there is no luncheon-car attached. Luncheon 
baskets are brought round to the compartments, however. 
In Liverpool Dock Station there is nothing like the usual 
crowd and bustle. The number of passengers is small. 
"This way please" say the dock policemen, and they shep- 
herd the passengers towards a number of benches, fac- 
ing a small table, at which sit an official in plain clothes 
and an officer wearing the green tabs on his collar and 
the green band round his cap which denote the Intelli- 
gence Service of the British Army. Once more there 
are questions to be answered. This is an examination 
conducted on behalf of the military authorities. You 
may have satisfied the Foreign Office and yet fail to 
satisfy the Intelligence Department. 

"What are your reasons for going to the United 
States?" 

"Ever been there before?" 

"What is your occupation?" 

Wearily the travellers repeat their replies for the last 
time. All are found "Not guilty." They hurry on 
board to take possession of their state-rooms and to see 
that their trunks have been distributed to them. 

Now begins the discussion of the question: "Ho\^ 
soon shall we be off?" Tales are gloomily told of ships 
that have been kept in the Mersey for five days. Is it 
an advantage for us that the weather is calm? Does 
that not make it easier for submarines to attack? Do 
we have to wear our lifebelts all the time? Is an in- 
flated waistcoat better than a cork belt? 

One passenger has a whole suit to wear in case of dis- 



30 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

aster. It is like a diver's suit in appearance. He fetches 
it from his cabin and puts it on in view of an admiring 
throng. He takes too long however to struggle into it. 
Admiration changes to doubt of its efficacy. "Ship 
would go down before you'd found your way in and but- 
toned it all up," says a sceptic, voicing the verdict of the 
rest. We drift out on to the deck again, hang over the 
side, watch the bridge which connects us with the shore 
being removed, speculate as to whether we are really off 
or not. 

In a few minutes our doubts are dispelled and our 
spirits rise rapidly. We are casting off. Into the wide 
river we go, down towards the mouth of it. Westward 
we see the sun declining. Into the sunset we shall soon 
be heading. "New York to-morrow week perhaps, who 
knows ?" 

Who knows? Indeed that is a question impossible to 
answer. Nobody knows. We have to wait for instruc- 
tions. Those who give the instructions have to wait for 
the reports of the submarine-chasers. What the sub- 
marines will be doing at any given moment, nobody 
knows. Patient we must be, if we are detained, and 
thankful that the British and American patrols and 
mine-sweepers are making the way as safe as it can be 
made for our voyage. 

Need for patience soon overtakes us. Opposite the 
Tower at New Brighton Beach plump goes our anchor. 
Here we are to stay until further orders. These do not 
come until we are in bed. In the night we make another 
start. Next morning we are well on our way. Not 
the most familiar way, but a way more interesting and 
more picturesque. Never have the hills and vales of 
Ireland looked greener and lovelier than on this bright 
day of blue sky and sunshine. The sea has a brisk little 



CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WAR-TIME 31 

"popple" on it, but the ship ploughs along with a steady 
movement. Every one is eager to catch a glimpse of 
some of the vessels that are taking care of us. Now 
and again we sight the smoke of a destroyer or pass a 
fleet of mine-sweepers, and feel we would like to cheer 
the brave crews of them, who risk their lives daily and 
every hour of the day to keep tlie Atlantic Lane open and 
secure. 

If we choose, we can keep that Lane open and send 
ships along it with very small risk. The chief safe- 
guards against submarine attack are, Speed not less than 
fifteen knots and hundreds of small fast armed patrol 
craft to hunt the U-boats away. How small the danger 
is for fast ships can be judged from this which I 
know to be a fact. One of the Departments of my Brit- 
ish War Mission in the United States has sent to Eng- 
land its accounts weekly since early spring. It was dis- 
covered lately that they have not been sent in duplicate 
even. Yet none of them have failed to reach England. 
Is it any wonder that an official in London who was 
asked : "What precautions do you take to ensure your 
communications reaching your representatives in Amer- 
ica?" replied "Precautions? No precautions at all. We 
post our letters in the ordinary way." 

Here is proof that speed confers immunity to a very 
marked degree. It may happen that by ill fortune or 
through carelessness a fast ship will be caught and sunk, 
but if all possible precautions are taken and if all ships 
traversing the Atlantic Lane could steam at not less than 
fifteen knots, (and faster if the speed of German sub- 
marines increases, as it very likely may), then we could 
have regular traffic attended by very little risk. At pres- 
ent the danger zone is not of vast extent, though it would 
never be safe to assume that the enemy may not at any 



32 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

time increase its area. While our ship is in this zone 
there is a noticeable tendency among some of the passen- 
gers to talk about any subject rather than submarines, 
and many anxious looks are to be seen directed towards 
the waste of ocean on either side of the ship. 

Sometimes we are hailed by a patrol boat. Lucky for 
us if it does not tell our captain to turn in somewhere 
and wait for instructions. Often the Loughs which dent 
the coast of Ireland are littered with ships that have 
been ordered for their own good and safety to get into 
shelter. Nothing of this interesting uncertainty accom- 
panied the voyages of peace-time. Nor were there guns 
mounted fore and aft in peace-time, with American 
blue jackets manning them, standing by the whole time 
that ships are in the danger-zone. They keep a sharp 
look-out. One man has powerful glasses (not the tele- 
scope, which used to be always preferred for sea work). 
Another has a telephone apparatus strapped over his 
head, the mouthpiece just under his chin. A third stands 
by a huge speaking-tube. The instant any suspicious 
object is sighted these men give warning. On the bridge 
are gunnery officers as well as the ship's officers, not less 
vigilant than their men on deck. 

Never are the gun-crews or the gunnery officers al- 
lowed to quit their posts so long as there is danger. 
Night and day they are ready for action. How they 
enjoy their sleep when the tension is relaxed! 

"Tired, I expect," I say to one of the sailors, a fair, 
handsome giant who is sitting in a deck-chair, blinking 
at the sun. This is all the rest permitted, and only one 
at a time. 

"You bet you," he makes answer. "But to-morrow 
I'll have fourteen hours in my bunk. We'll be out of 
the danger-zone then." 



CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WAR-TIME 33 

Splendid fellows, these American naval gunners. 
Keen on their work, making light of its fatigues, eager, 
how eager, to get a shot in at the enemy. They are 
proud of their guns, proud of what they can do in the 
shooting line, proud of their appearance also. In the 
slacker days they paint them and shine up their brass- 
work with affectionate care. The passengers grow fond 
of their defenders, feel safe when they see them stand- 
ing round their long naval guns. Many of the voyagers 
are as anxious as the gunners for "something to hap- 
pen," even though it meant risk of being torpedoed. 
Time hangs heavy on our hands. There is no regular 
service of news by wireless to provide us with topics for 
discussion. Only official passengers can receive or send 
telegrams. Wireless is only used now for urgent mes- 
sages of strict business. Deck games are played. There 
is much dancing among the second-cabin passengers. 
But one does not seem to settle down to the conditions 
of the voyage, as one used to. There is so much un- 
certainty. One poor little American woman with a baby 
scarcely ever leaves the deck, I notice. She is afraid of 
being below if "anything happened." A truly pathetic 
figure, this anxious mother. Some of us spend most of 
the time calculating how long it will be before we reach 
New York. They have nothing to go upon, for we do 
not even know where we are. Though the ship's run is. 
announced each noon, its position on the chart is not 
marked. But they go on making their calculations simply 
for something to do. 

Others pass hours scanning the horizon for signs of 
craft, enemy or Ally : at so great a distance it is scarcely 
possible to disting-uish friend from foe. One afternoon 
a ship whicli puzzles even our officers comes well in 
view. Our guns are trained on her. No doubt hers are 



34 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

trained on us. She is coming nearer to us. Can she be 
a new raider escaped from Wilhelmshafen ? "Watch 
for a flash from her broadside," suggests a passenger al- 
ways hoping for an adventure, "and if you see it, throw 
yourself on deck quick." But no flash comes, and the 
mystery ship, after inspecting us, turns away again. Still 
it is an exciting little episode. 

Some ships have more adventures than others. One 
which followed ours after a short interval had a narrow 
escape of being hit by a torpedo. At half -past-ten one 
morning a woman jumped from her deck-chair and cried 
out "Look, look, what is it?" At the same moment the 
crews of the gun became suddenly even more intent and 
earnest than usual. One or two who had either heard 
the woman's cry or seen the gun-crews stiffen, noticed 
a white track approach the ship and pass her just astern. 

"Was it really a torpedo?" said the chief gunnery offi- 
cer afterwards, replying to some Doubting Thomas pas- 
sengers. "Sure thing it was a torpedo. I saw it from 
the bridge, and I caught sight of the periscope of the 
U-boat that let us have it. But next moment our smoke 
had hidden it. We couldn't get a shot in." 

This same ship experienced another alarm. On a hot 
Sunday afternoon just after tea-time the electric bells 
began ringing through the ship. All passengers on deck 
were made to scurry inside and to gather at the head of 
the main stairway. The doors were shut and then fol- 
lowed instantly the tearing, deafening report of a gun. 
^'Put on your lifebelts" was the order given. With ad- 
mirable courage and coolness the women obeyed, then 
awaited further developments. Their hearts beat faster 
than usual. They were some of them a little white about 
the lips. But they had counted the cost of what they 
did before they started. They showed no fear. 



CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WAR-TIME 35 

Again and again that sound which made even men 
jump and stuff handkerchiefs into their ears, was re- 
peated. Windows were broken all over the ship. The 
flashes made those who looked out think for the moment 
that they were blinded. The crashes set nerves on edge, 
made all who had never heard gun-fire at close quarters 
before feel quite sure that they never wanted to hear it 
again. 

In reality there was no danger. A strange object 
which had at first the appearance of a submarine peri- 
scope was sighted off the port bow. Taking no risks, the 
gunners fired on it. As it drifted past, it was seen to be 
a buoy with a pole sticking out of it. The pole was 
certainly like a periscope, and as the buoy rolled in a 
heavy sea, it did resemble what one might see of a sub- 
marine's hull in like conditions. The opportunity for 
gun-practice was too good to be let slip Sixty rounds 
were fired. Then the passengers were released, with 
something very interesting to talk about for the rest of 
the afternoon. 

Though there are so few of us, there is no lack of 
interesting talk. For each traveller has a reason for 
travelling. The type of person who drifts from one 
part of the world to the other without knowing why fills 
up a lot of space on Atlantic liners in ordinary times. 
But not in war-time. Every passenger now has a defi- 
nite object in making the voyage, and it is the people with 
objects in life who are the interesting people. There are 
a number of young men returning to the United States 
to serve in the Army which is going to help in finishing 
the war. There are British men of business who have 
placed their services at the disposal of their country and 
who are going to spend British money in the United 
States. There are plucky young Englishwomen who 



S6 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

have volunteered to v^ork for the British War Mission. 
There is an American newspaper man returning from 
the front and a British newspaper man commissioned to 
tell the British public how America is making war. 

Plenty of talk then to while away the long summer 
days until one morning my Irish room-steward tells me 
"Ye'll be landin' to-morrow night or maybe the mornin' 
afther," We have all been longing for the voyage to be 
over, but now that it is nearly ended, we almost regret 
it. On some ships the men passengers are asked to take 
night watches on the bridge, and they grumble, as men 
will, yet they are regretful when their duties come to an 
end. Why is it? This voyage has been longer than any 
I ever made across the Atlantic. What has made us en- 
joy it? What is it that will make us look back on it as 
a voyage of unusual interest? It is that spice of adven- 
ture I spoke of. It is the tinge of danger. Travelling 
has ceased to be humdrum, uneventful. It has become 
romantic again. 



THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 



THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE ^ 

Headquarters, Canadian Army, France. 

Embedded in the heart of the great Canadian Army 
in France is a body of American citizens in khaki, who 
have already succeeded in effecting another of the sev- 
eral revolutions produced in warfare by the United 
States. 

The first and most important was the aeroplane in- 
vented by the Wrights, of Dayton, Ohio. The second is 
the machine-gun, originally designed by Maxim, with the 
newer Lewis light machine-gun easily carried, or for use 
on aeroplanes. 

The third revolution is one that I would hardly be- 
lieve had I not had ocular demonstration. It is the con- 
version of the British Tommy to a faith in pork and 
beans as a diet instead of the beef on which he has 
fought since the time of the Norman conquest of Eng- 
land. 

These Americans in the British Army, with whom I 
have just spent a day, are part of the topsy-turveydom 
in which we are living, and when I saw them marching 
back from the trenches to the tunes of "My Country, 
'tis of Thee," "The Star-Spangled Banner," and the less 
classic and more modern ragtime, I wondered what the 
small American boys, who have so often teased me on 

* This, the first account of the Americans in our Army, was writ- 
ten early in 1917 for the 850 journals of the United Press of 
America. 

39 



40 LORD NORTHCLLFFE'S WAR BOOK 

Independence Day celebrations in your country, would 
have thought of a factor in the war that is not sufficiently 
known in the United States. 

I propose telling you what the American soldiers in 
the British and French Armies are doing, where they 
come from, how they live, and why they came. 

The Germans are particularly bitter towards them, and 
say that these splendid young Americans were hired by 
the Allies. From the German point of view the pay of 
the Americans, who are fighting against Prussianism, is, 
doubtless, princely. It amounts exactly to a dollar and 
a quarter a day. I leave people in the United States to 
judge whether that be the sort of remuneration that is 
calculated to draw American university graduates — some 
with considerable private fortunes — business men, real- 
estate men, clerks, lumber men, engineers, across the 
Atlantic. The falsehood is one of the bits of German 
boomerang propaganda with which neutrals are becom- 
ing acquainted. 

The Americans in the British and French Armies en- 
listed in divers ways in the first few months of the war. 
Many went to England 'direct and entered the British 
Army. Those who were living in Europe at the out- 
break of the war formed a union with the British resi- 
dents in France and joined the French. Others went 
over later and entered the flying services, where they 
have done splendid work. 

Early in the war, during the battle of the Marne, I was 
billeted with a number of our dispatch-riders, and much 
surprised to find that the particular company with whom 
I was spending the night were mainly from the United 
States, It is almost impossible to estimate the numbers 
of Americans in these two Armies, but if we include 
those engaged in the noble work of the American Ambu- 



THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 41 

lance in Paris and its numerous automobile convoys, it 
has been estimated at quite a sufficient number to have 
made the American language, American music, and Bos- 
ton baked beans familiar. 

A great feature of the war on the Western front at 
present are the day and night raids — a stark form of 
individual fighting encouraged by the British leader. Sir 
Douglas Haig, in which the Canadians and British, who 
have a considerable force of Americans with them, are 
adepts. Each raid, as I have said, is a miniature battle. 
It was in studying this form of warfare that I had the 
pleasure of seeing the Americans who are serving with 
a Canadian regiment reviewed by a general on their 
return from the firing line for a rest and a New Year's 
Day dinner that was a week late. 

By a curious coincidence the setting of the scene was 
that of a thousand of American and Canadian lumber 
camps, even down to the log-houses. We were just out 
of shell range of the German runs, though the British 
artillery was talking all the time. As the men came 
down the hillside, through the tall pine trees, it did not 
take long for one who has visited most of the States of 
the Union to detect, despite the mud and fatigue, from 
which of the world's continents they came. They were 
in the highest of high spirits. Released uhm the cramped 
tension of the always shelled, water-logged trenches, they 
came tumbling over each other like schoolboys. All are 
in pleasant and happy relations with their Canadian and 
British officers, which make for good fighting and do not 
derogate from strict discipline. They were paraded for 
a moment or two for inspection ; and, as company after 
company formed into line, I could not but admire the 
quickness — cumbered as they were with all sorts of equip- 
ment, and an extra suit of caked mud — with which they 



42 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

came to attention and eyes right. If I had any doubt 
as to the home of these stalwart fighters for freedom it 
would have been settled by a steady movement of the 
jaws, betokening a habit which is rapidly spreading 
among the English and French, and which is said by 
doctors to be quite a useful relaxation when under the 
fire of trench mortars and Mincnwerfcr. Before each 
company was dismissed I was allowed to make them a 
short speech and to mix and mingle as freely as I chose. 
I had brought with me a newspaper cutting from a Ger- 
man source, in which it was said that the Americans 
complained of their treatment. I had only to read it to 
the first group to have it hotly denied. "We are having 
a perfectly corking time, despite the mud," said a Cali- 
fornian with a figure several sizes taller and larger than 
Mr. Hearst's and a voice as resonant as Mr. Roose- 
velt's. "You will not find a 'grouch' in the whole 'outfit,' 
except that we had not expected to have to learn rnud- 
swimming and that we do not see enough home news- 
papers." "As for that," replied another, "I don't want 
to see mine. The folks sent it along at first, but I stopped 
it, for it gave only Fritzy's side of the case." 

I found lack of home newspapers to be a general com- 
plaint. All who have relatives or friends in the Ameri- 
can army, should see that they get a newspaper every 
M^eek. 

These American boys are proud, and rightly proud, of 
the deeds of their own American men and officers. In 
the midst of this vast army — the British Army in France 
has now been publicly stated to exceed two million men 
— they occupy an anomalous, if proud, position. 

Among the heroic dead there is no greater story than 
that of Major Stewart, for twelve years in the American 
cavalry, who joined in the great Canadian attack on the 



THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 43 

Regina Trench — named after the Canadian town of 
Regina. Though not engaged in that particular opera- 
tion, he could not resist the temptation to dash over the 
parapet with a cry of "Come on, boys!" Terribly 
wounded, he endeavoured to struggle forward against 
the Germans, but was carried back and then killed by 
shell fire. He is one of the many Americans whose 
dare-devilry has endeared them to their Canadian and 
British associates. 

While most of the newspaper dispatches from Wash- 
ington which reach the French and English newspapers 
were full of the word "peace" these husky young Ameri- 
can citizens would not hear of it. "To h with peace 

talk," said a bright-eyed boy from Kansas City, "while 
these slant-heads across the line there are enslaving 
French and Belgian women and children. There would 
be none of this peace business at home if the people 
there knew the facts." On New Year's Day the Boche 
soldiers put out boards saying "Why not have a peace 
talk?" The reply of the whole Allied line was an artil- 
lery bombardment which clenched the question. 

A blue-eyed American from Wisconsin, with, I should 
think, Swedish blood in his veins, said, "Our people at 
home do not seem to realise that talking peace terms 
with the Germans still in France means a German vic- 
tory. The home folks do not know what we know. In 
the matter of fight the Prussians, brave as they are, are 
down and out." "The German Government is crying 
out for peace," added a hatchet-faced Yankee who had 
gone out West as a boy, made good, and thrown up all 
for the war, "because the German Army and the German 
people know that we have got them where we want 
them." 

There is little bitterness against the enemy among the 



44 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

Canadian, American, and British soldiers. They admire 
his mass fighting, his machine-like disciplne, but they 
have no use for him in the kind of warfare now going 
on. *'You will find the Canadians and Americans a 
thinking, independent army," remarked the distinguished 
British general who had given me permission to spend 
this very interesting day, and so I found them to be. 
They had brought to the stock of vitality and knowledge 
embraced in the wonderful citizen Armies of France 
and England the qualities inherited by the generations 
which have spanned the North American Continent with 
its railroads, chained Niagara, linked up the world's 
cities and armies by telephone, lit the dug-outs with in- 
candescent lamps, cheered them with canned music, and 
brought a thousand other mechanical ideas to perfec- 
tion. 

If you take a map of the United States and go up 
and down the American lines in France you will find 
no city, great or small, which has not sent a flying man, 
a bomber, an artilleryman, a sniper, or dispatch rider 
to help to destroy Prussian despotism. In the United 
States you probably hear more of the spectacular part 
of the American work — that which enthrals the whole 
world — the new art of fighting in the skies. I confess, 
indeed, that although I have spent many weeks at the 
war the spectacle of winged fighters high in the sun- 
light is one that holds my attention as nothing in the 
world ever has. In peace times, and when we were 
younger, we have often been tlirilled by a close baseball 
or football match; but when, sheltered perhaps in a 
trench, we see two specks approaching each other and 
with a pair of strong glasses gradually realise that one 
is an American who has given up .everything — home, 
prosperity, and probably life — to throw himself into a 



THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 45 

foreign Army, and that the other Is a brave German 
doing what he conceives to be his duty, we recognise 
that here are two combatants worth watching. 

Very rarely do the Germans venture over our lines, 
and one has to be very far forward nowadays to get a 
good view of a fight between the AlHes and the enemy 
in the air. I have had that good fortune several times. 
Air fighting in 1914 bore as much resemblance to air 
fighting in 191 7 as an old steam automobile to a six- 
cylinder of to-day. There is a perpetual match in speed- 
ing up between the enemy and the Allies. Four or five 
miles an hour extra pace means everything. It is not the 
increase of engine power to over 200 h.p. that has brought 
about the change so much as the wonderful progress of 
the art of flying itself, and it is just here that the Anglo- 
Saxon and the Frenchman beat the slower-minded Ger- 
man. It is just for this reason why the German soldiers' 
letters are so full of complaint about the over-cautious 
German airman. 

When Pegoud invented looping the loop people asked, 
"Why? What is the use of it?" Pegoud was a very 
considerable inventor as well as a flyer, is the answer. 
Looping the loop is a useful manoeuvre, and it has been 
succeeded by that extraordinary development, the nose 
dive, in which the airman seems to fall like a stone for 
thousands of feet, till the spectator's hair rises from his 
head in horror. Suddenly the machine flattens out, 
scoots away, and you find that it is only a trick after all. 
I talked with one of our wounded boys — he was just 
nineteen — who had fallen 8,000 feet owing to his rudder 
wire connection being shot through. By a miracle his 
machine straightened itself out automatically within a 
hundred yards of the ground, and the boy is alive and 
will fly again. I asked him his sensations : he is probably 



46 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

the only man in the world alive who has fallen 8,cxdo 
feet — more than ten times the height of the Woolworth 
building, New York City, 750 feet. He said that for a 
long time — what seemed like hours — he knew that he 
was falling, and falling at a tremendous speed, and then 
he lost consciousness, as in a dream, and found himself 
being picked out of the wreck of his machine by people 
who thought that he was dead. 

At the beginning of an air fight there is manoeuvring 
for position and feinting as in boxing. There are, as a 
rule, two men in each machine — a pilot and an observer 
— except in the smaller types, in which the wings are 
clipped down to nothing to get extra speed and climbing 
power. Knowledge of engine and plane power, quick- 
ness of decision, and accuracy of shooting with the 
Lewis gun are essential to the pilot. His observer is 
provided with some form of pistol and often with bombs. 

The rival planes, like giant hawks, hover around, 
above, or below each other, till one more expert or more 
daring than the other manoeuvres his opponent into a 
position from which he has either got to fight or flee. 
The knock-out blow is usually a sudden descent on the 
enemy, accompanied by accurate machine-gun fire. 
Sometimes it become a duel with Browning pistols, in 
which the men are so close that they can see each other's 
eA'es. The thing is over before you realise it. One ma- 
chine is off and away, and the other whirls and crashes 
down, down, down to earth. 

The British Army does not permit the names of its 
flying heroes to be published. In telling you, therefore, 
of the American flyers, I must deal with those Ameri- 
cans in the French Army. 

Lieutenant Thaw, of Pittsburg, was one of a number 
of Americans who entered the famous Foreign Legion 



THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 47 

of the French Army on the outbreak of war, and is the 
senior American flying officer in France. His name and 
that of his colleagues are better known in Europe than in 
their own country. 

In giving a list of those whose names are known 
(some, alas! are lying beneath the wooden cross) I can 
say no more than that they are worthy representatives of 
a great nation. 

Lieutenant Thaw was followed by Bert Hall, from 
Texas, James Bach, D. Masson, Givas Lufbery, James 
McConnell, of Chicago, Chouteau Johnson, of New 
York, Elliot Cowdin, Kiffin Rockwell, Clyde Balsley, of 
Texas, Dudley Hill, of Peekskill, New York, and Victor 
Chapman. 

The policy of the American airmen serving with the 
French Army is that of the British and French — to at- 
tack. They have played a goodly part in the invention of 
the constantly changing tactics of air fighting. 

My last recollection of the American soldiers was their 
well-spread New Year's table, at which was everything 
the tired man from across the Atlantic could want, from 
turkeys to dough-nuts. 

I put one question to a score of those whose mothers 
were not ashamed to raise them to be soldiers. I asked 
them why they had come. The reply of the American 
in France is the same every time, whether you meet him 
with the Canadian Army, the British Army, or the 
French Army. They all say words to this effect : — "The 
sort of thing that has been going on in Europe as the 
result of the horrible organised savagery of the Prus- 
sians has got to be stopped. We want to stop it before 
it reaches our own country. We have come over here to 
do it, and, thank God, we know that we are helping to 
do it, and it is to be thoroughly done." 



48 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

To which one of them added as I said good-night: — 
"If any one asks you what sort of a time the Americans 
are having just hand them out one good home- word — 
'Bully.' " 



WHAT TO SEND "YOUR SOLDIER'* 



WHAT TO SEND TO "YOUR SOLDIER" 

A NUMBER of people have asked me the question since 
my arrival in the United States: What are the gifts 
which the soldier in the field most gratefully appre- 
ciates? Hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers, 
of sisters and cousins, of uncles and aunts, will soon be 
wanting to send parcels to the hundreds of thousands 
of American soldiers who are going to France "to serve 
the cause of Liberty in this great war," as President Wil- 
son has happily put it. Unless they are advised, they 
may very likely, in the kindness of their hearts, send the 
wrong gifts. A dear old lady in England forwarded to 
her nephew at the front a typewriter "to write his let- 
ters with," an elaborate picnic-basket; and a manicure 
set solidly mounted in silver. She did not understand 
that the soldier has to carry about with him everything 
that he possesses. Her gifts found their way swiftly 
to the nearest pawnbroker's. 

Every extra pound that the soldier carries on his back 
means extra fatigue. At first he begins nearly always 
by loading himself up with all kinds of articles which 
add to the comfort and convenience of life, but which 
weigh a great deal more than he finds it pleasant to bear. 
He soon discards them. He brings his burden down to 
the irreducible minimum. One day I came across some 
of our men in a village near the firing-line who were 
turning out their waterproof canvas bags with a view 

51 



52 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

to lightening them. It was pathetic to watch them reck- 
oning up what they could best do without. Soldiers ac- 
cumulate every variety of queer "treasures." One had 
been carting about for a long time the head of a Ger- 
man shell "for some one at Home." He had to choose 
between it and a tin of sardines. Another was sadly 
contemplating a small carriage-clock. I did not ask him 
whether it was a present or a "find." It was given to a 
French villager in exchange for "red wine all round." 

That is the first and most important thing to bear in 
mind, then. Whatever you send, your soldier will either 
have to carry with him wherever he goes, or else leave 
behind. 

Next, remember that he is leading a simple life and 
that his needs are for the most part elemental. Don't 
be misled into saying to yourself : "Oh, that is such an 
ordinary thing. He can surely buy that for himself." 
Often it happens that the soldier is out of reach of shops 
for a long while. He may be passing his time between 
the trenches and some village behind the firing-line, where 
all that can be bought are inferior chocolate and ciga- 
rettes, these at exorbitant prices. At many points there 
are Y. M. C. A. huts which sell all kinds of things that 
soldiers need. These are doing a most useful work : they 
also serve as rest-houses for the men, restaurants, tea- 
shops, and entertainment halls. But a man may not 
come within reach of one of these stores, or of any place 
where he can make purchases, for weeks, and maybe 
months, at a time. 

Such necessaries as soap, toothbrushes, writing-paper 
and envelopes are apt to be very welcome. At all events, 
sent from Home, they are likely to be of better quality 
than any that can be bought in the area of war. I recol- 
lect one man telling me he derived an exquisite pleasure 



WHAT TO SEND TO "YOUR SOLDIER" 5^ 

from washing himself with a certain kind of soap always 
used in his mother's house. 

The best sweets to send are, I should say, chocolate 
and bulls' eyes. Chewing-gum should certainly not be 
forgotten. It is not easy to buy in France. The bulls* 
eyes ought to have plenty of peppermint in them, for it is 
the peppermint which keeps those who suck them warm 
on a cold night. It also has a digestive effect, though 
that is of small account at the front, where health is so 
good and indigestion hardly ever even heard of. The 
open-air life, the regular and plenteous feeding, the ex- 
ercise, and the freedom from care and responsibility, keep 
the soldiers extraordinarily fit and contented. Many 
have assured me that they never knew what it was to feel 
perfectly well and strong before. 

Wrist watches are welcome gifts, and these should all 
have luminous hands so that the owner can tell the time 
in the dark; they should also have the little protective 
covers on them which look like tiny gridirons. They 
are valuable for keeping the watch-glass unbroken. 
There is a tiny stove sold in England called "Tommy's 
Cooker." No doubt this either is or soon will be pro- 
curable here. The spirit which it burns is not liquid, 
but solid, a great convenience for Tommy. This is a 
useful little present. Electric torches with plenty of 
refills come in handy. They are better than candles, 
though these are at times worth their weight in coin. 
When a squad is settling into a barn or an outhouse for 
the night, a dark night and a long night, from five o'clock 
in the evening perhaps till eight next morning, the men 
who have candle ends in their bags are envied by all 
their fellows. 

Indelible pencils and fountain pens, especially those 
which fill themselves without need of a glass syringe. 



64 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

never come amiss. No matter though you think your 
soldier has one. Very likely he has lost or broken it. 
Anyway he will either break or lose it before long. 
You may be sure he will not mind having one in reserve. 
The same applies to wrist-watches, and also to pipes. 
They are small and light to carry in the pocket. A new 
one is never superfluous. Put a pipe in always when 
you are sending a parcel, if he smokes a pipe. Put one 
in even if he does not, for he can "trade" the pipe away 
for something else. Put in some of his favourite to- 
bacco as well. Probably he cannot get it anyv^diere in 
France. Nothing will stir his feelings more surely than 
the flavour of the mixture he was accustomed to use at 
Home. 

Knives are necessities to the soldier. He wants them 
for varied employments. He must have strong blades. 
He requires next in order a corkscrew, not a flimsy one 
liable to be broken by the first tough cork it encounters ; 
an awl for making holes; scissors, and a saw. Knives 
with these attachments will make him happy and get him 
out of many a difficulty. Small "housewives," by which 
I mean cases containing needles and cotton, thread, but- 
tons, safety-pins, and so on, are an immense help when 
minor repairs are necessary. Nothing bulky or com- 
plicated : just the necessaries for sewing up rents, sewing 
on buttons, stitching burst button-holes. 

Playing cards are grateful and comforting to all who 
find recreation in card-games. Decks of cards get very 
quickly soiled and greasy in the trenches. Fresh decks 
are hailed with enthusiasm. If your soldier is more of a 
reader than a card-player, send him books, only be sure 
they are small books, "infinite riches in a little room." 
A tiny selection of poems by a favourite poet, or a min- 
iature edition of some story, some essays, some work 



WHAT TO SEND TO "YOUR SOLDIER" 55 

of research or imagination, an edition that will go into 
the pocket without taking up too much space. That is a 
gift which will bring to many a soldier the finest pleas- 
ure of all pleasures, absorption in the visions or the 
thoughts of one of the world's great minds. 

Remember that soldiers at the front have a great deal 
of time on their hands. They need occupation. Select 
your presents with that in mind. Musical instruments, 
if they are small, mouth-organs, for example, are much 
sought after. In Italy the soldiers play on little man- 
dolins specially made for the front. In Russia the bal- 
alika, a kind of guitar, is heard very often: the con- 
certina too. Many French soldiers produce charming 
music from shepherd's pipes. 

As for warm things to wear, those which the soldiers 
prize most highly are knitted mufflers, ten or twelve 
inches wide and from four to five feet long, which can 
be wound all round the head in bitter weather or passed 
about the body so as to form a woollen waistcoat. 
Knitted helmets are good to save ears from frostbite: 
see that there is plenty of material to come down over 
the shoulders and chest. Mittens and thick socks are 
always acceptable in the weather which prevails in the 
north and east of France from October until April. The 
socks must be very large for the foot which is to be 
kept warm by them. Khaki handkerchiefs may be sent 
as often as you like. They are better than white ones, 
and a fresh supply is always handy. Vaseline is a good 
gift. It can be used for many purposes. It serves as a 
lubricant. It eases feet that have marched far. It is 
good for bums. It relieves the pain of sunburnt or wind- 
burnt skin. Pond's Extract is another useful medica- 
ment. Do not forget safety-razors and shaving soap. 

Those I think are some of the chief things that the 



56 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

boys in the trenches need. But most of all they long for 
letters from Home, and for the Home town newspaper. 
World-news they get in English or French journals: it 
is local news they hunger for. Write to them and send 
them such newspapers at least once a week. I have 
sometimes had to turn away from groups of soldiers at 
the front because I could not bear to see the anguish 
on the faces of men who saw their comrades reading let- 
ters and who had received none themselves. Do not 
let your soldier have to feel the sharp and painful sting 
of neglect. Keep him well supplied with news and 
loving words. 



THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 



THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 

Headquarters, Canadian Army, France. 

A BRILLIANT late summer Canadian morning in Win- 
nipeg — Labour Day, when hour after hour a procession 
of stalwart trade unionists, with their music and banners, 
passed along the American-looking streets bearing 
proudly the emblems of their trades. 



That half-forgotten scene was in my mind as I waited 
by the roadside in Flanders to see the same men, square- 
jawed, on their way through the snow to the ordeal of 
the firing line. For some of these Canadians it was 
their first trial; others had been "over the top" again 
and again in the raids in which they have been so suc- 
cessful in capturing and agitating the enemy. 

In appearance Canadian soldiers more closely re- 
semble British soldiers than any of the others from 
overseas. Many are of a great stature, especially the 
Scotsmen from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Cape 
Breton, some of the descendants of the disbanded High- 
land regiments of long ago. Quite a number speak 
Gaelic. Most of the other English-speakers are of the 
strong and stocky Canadian and American type, which 
has resulted from a generation or two of the natural 
life of the out-of-doors men. The French Canadians 
are smaller, but they are wiry. 

59 



60 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

The Canadian front in France is a replica in minia- 
ture of the whole vast Dominion. It is a world of the 
railroads, the forests, the farms, the mines, the lakes, 
the rivers, tlie banks, insurance, real estate, the lumber 
camp and, dare I whisper it? even politics. 

The Canadian soldiers have had good and bad luck. 
At home many of them are accustomed and willing to 
rough it in all sorts of ways, and they were, therefore, 
inured to discomfort. They had not experienced damp 
mud, and the dreadful mud of that first rainy winter on 
Salisbury Plain was a real misfortune. They bore their 
trials nobly, though so arduous were the conditions that 
the actual mortality was serious. 

All their ill luck, however, was more than balanced 
when they secured for their leader one of the ablest, 
as well as one of the best-liked generals in the whole 
war — Sir Julian Byng, a worthy representative of a 
great fighting family. 

After Sir Julian took command the Canadians hu- 
morously called themselves "The Bing Boys," after a 
popular musical comedy. In one battle they gaily sig- 
nalled back from within a few yards of the artillery 
barrage that "The Bing Boys are here," denoting their 
arrival at the second German Trench. 

There was still lingering in tlie Overseas mind an 
old lurking suspicion of the Imperial Officer: it dated 
back to General Braddock's mishandling of the American 
Colonists, and the treatment of young Colonel George 
Washington when he was fighting on the English side. 
Such doubts, however, did not apply to Sir Julian Byng, 
who had the absolute confidence and afifection of his 
warmhearted and practical army. Sir Julian is a big, 
well-made man with strong jaws, strong ears, and a 
strong walk, distinctly handsome with dark blue eyes. 



THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 61 

His military experience is as complete and varied as 
that of any officer at the war. His Canadian colleagues, 
General Currie, General Watson, General Lipsitt, and 
French-Canadians with names like Bubuc and Papin- 
eau, all spoke with the same enthusiasm of their Chief. 

It was General Currie who was selected to succeed 
General Byng in command of the Canadian Forces, and 
who still commands them. He is a huge Ontario man 
who made his way West, gathered a fortune in Real 
Estate and Insurance in the delightful city of Victoria, 
B. C, and has proved himself as good a soldier as man 
of business. He is probably one of the biggest Generals 
in our Army, and certainly one of the most silent. Gen- 
eral Watson, whom I have known for several years, is 
the owner of the Quebec Chronicle. 

Each of the British Armies in France has its own 
characteristics. One of the keynotes of the Canadian 
character is quick adaptability. The boy who works 
the lift in the Vancouver hotel and tries to sell you a 
corner lot may, within twelve months, be running his 
own real estate office or developing some industry far 
away on the Yukon. The atmosphere of adaptability in 
that climate is infectious. The London suburban clerk, 
who has stood the dull imprisonment of tube, typewriter, 
and bed-sitting-room until nature has burst his bonds, 
catches on to the Canadian life in most cases with a 
rapidity that is due to the vitalising sunshine and the 
opportunities that offer themselves to everybody except 
those who are born temperamentally as "quitters." 

Sir Julian Byng and the other Canadian generals have 
utilised this adaptability to the utmost. Be it remem- 
bered always that the Dominion troops are undergoing 
experiences in contrast not known to our own men. 
Whereas the difference in life in England and Flanders 



62 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

is not very great, the difference between Dominion life 
and European life is vast. The absence of sunshine and 
the damp, the difference of the diet and the surroundings, 
constitute an hourly and daily contrast between North 
American life and ours. It is the French Canadians 
only who have an advantage over the others. Billet them 
in a French village and they are at once at home with 
the inhabitants. Their Louis XIV, accent does not differ 
as much from the ordinary French as do the dialects 
of, let us say, Picardy and the Midi, 

Byng and his Canadian generals utilised the speciali- 
ties of the daily work of the Canadians with signal ef- 
fect. He and his officers "got together," to use an ex- 
pression often heard in Canada continually in confer- 
ences and lectures. By this means they found out ex- 
actly what particular aptitudes the Canadians could bring 
to bear in beating the Boche. One speciality is map-mak- 
ing and surveying. For obvious reasons the Canadians 
are probably the greatest map-makers in the world, just 
as they are the greatest railroad builders. They are 
map-makers by necessity, for they have a rich and largely 
undeveloped territory forty times the size of the Old 
Country, which is being mapped and surveyed continu- 
ously. For the better accomplishment of their purpose 
they have not only developed their own map-makers, but 
have absorbed the best talent from Europe. That skill 
has now been developed in the Canadian Army in France, 
When I visited Sir Julian two features of his small per- 
sonal workroom attracted my attention — the theatre 
posters of the Bing Boys and the red-hot maps showing 
German positions of yesterday afternoon which had been 
already photographed by aviators, developed, mapped, 
printed and circulated up and down the line. This 
would be "going some" even in Fleet Street. Accurate 



THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 63 

photography and mapping of the enemy lines is a life 
saver of the first importance. How often in the earlier 
days of the war did we bow our heads before heavy cas- 
ualty lists caused by machine-guns from a German trench 
that had been overlooked in the planning of a bombard- 
ment ! 

I have described so many Armies in outline and the 
broad outlines of our Armies are so similar, that I can 
only here deal with a few of the marked differences. 
The Canadians are great as raiders. Each raid, as I 
have before pointed out, is a battle in miniature, and 
sometimes quite a large battle. One of the very first 
of these modern raids, if not the first, was successfully 
accomplished by the Canadians at Messines. I find that 
people at home do not quite realise the significance of 
these sudden and violent pounces on the German trenches. 
Their effect may be gathered from some of the German 
documents with which I shall conclude this chapter. In 
general, it may be said that these raids, which began 
as small movements for the identification of opposing 
forces, are now a successful means of breaking the worn 
German moral. Snow and frost have been no deterrent 
to the Canadians, to whom 20 and even 40 below zero 
are not unknown. 

It was the information obtained by aggressive raiding, 
and by air-photography which led in large part to the 
splendid success of the Canadians in capturing Vimy 
Ridge, an exploit which will remain marked in history as 
one of the most dashing achievements of the War. This 
\vas the opening phase of the stubborn struggle which 
has been going on ever since for the possession of Lens 
and its coalfields (now, as I write, high hopes are en- 
tertained of their capture within a short time). The 
storming of the Ridge was an operation planned with 



64 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

admirable decision and brilliantly executed. Nothing 
could have been finer or more spirited than the behaviour 
of the Canadian troops. Many of them "went over the 
top" with cigarettes between their lips. As, at one point, 
they lay waiting to advance further a captain of my 
acquaintance found himself next to an Irish Canadian 
soldier crouching amid a whistling of bullets and burst- 
ing of shells which for the moment made progress in- 
advisable. Without raising his head the soldier looked 
at the officer from imder his steel helmet. "Cap," he 
said, "there's no doubt about it, this is a dangerous 
war." 

Vimy Ridge marked the culmination of the Canadian 
Army's remarkable upward curve of efficiency which 
began when it found itself in so tight a place in the 
fighting around Ypres during the Spring of 191 5. Their 
development proceeded upon two parallel lines. Staff 
work went forward with daily increase of grasp and in- 
genuity. The moral of the troops improved at the 
same time in the most encouraging way. 

At the beginning the Canadian Army had to set to 
work to create staffs of its own as it went along. Here 
I should say for the benefit of those who are not yet 
fully acquainted with the terminology of war that staff 
work includes all the seeing and hearing and thinking 
and planning which are the necessary preliminaries to 
military operations. Canadian Officers took to this work 
quickly and with penetrating intelligence. They realised 
the need in the modern battle for unity of action ; action 
timed with exactitude to the minute, to the second even ; 
combined action of the different arms. They so skilfully 
co-ordinated the activities of artillery and infantry that 
the troops now move forward with confidence and in the 
perfect certainty of being supported, and of having the 



THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 65 

way prepared for them, by their guns. It would astonish 
you if I could print here a time table I have seen of what 
is called "barrage fire" that is to say, fire designed to 
create a zone of death which shall bar the enemy from 
hindering the advance of the men with the bayonets upon 
whom in the last analysis the capture of positions always 
depend. This zone of death was, according to the time 
table, to be moved forward every few minutes. Every 
company officer, every platoon commander, knew where 
it would be at any given second and was able to time 
his men's movements in consonance with this knowledge. 
The steady and systematic fashion in which the Cana- 
dians have carried out the tasks assigned to them during 
the very severe fighting of 191 6 and 191 7 has been due 
largely to the excellence of the staff work done in the 
rear of the storming columns. 

For the rest it has been due to the moral of the army, 
the result of the strict discipline enforced as soon as the 
training of the men settled down upon serious lines. 
That discipline stiffened unseasoned recruits into the 
troops who held Langemarck in the face of fearful odds 
and in spite of terrible losses. And once these troops 
had proved themselves, once they had come through the 
ordeal by fire, the Canadian Army had what every army 
requires, if it is to do itself justice : it had a tradition. 
Langemarck endowed it with a reputation to maintain. 
Every man felt that he had something to live up to. 
The men who joined the regiments which had already 
distinguished themselves were taught that they must 
never let the regimental prestige suffer, never fail to 
uphold the honourable name that had been won before 
they joined. The new Units as they took the field came 
under the influence of this inspiration, and so the whole 
force was welded together into an engine of steady 



66 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

power and unconquerable zeal. Traditions have immenge 
value. The Canadian Army acquired theirs in a mar- 
vellously short time and paid heavily for them. They 
have been of inestimable value to it. 

The Germans were soon taught to dread meeting the 
men of the Maple Leaf. They were so unwilling to en- 
gage Canadians at close quarters that the German Offi- 
cers were obliged to invent a story that the men from 
Canada were savages who killed without mercy, refus- 
ing to allow any enemy to surrender himself. After 
Vimy Ridge had been stormed, documents were found 
in German dugouts showing that every effort was made 
to terrify the gullible Hun into putting up a stiff fight. 
"Remember the Canadians take no prisoners," the Ger- 
man soldiers were told in Divisional Orders. Day after 
day the attack was expected by the enemy, whose nerves 
were set on edge by the tension of waiting always on 
the alert, and by the alarming stories set about by their 
officers. When the attack was made they were in less 
good shape to resist than they might have been if they 
had not been thus worried and alarmed. 

German discipline sometimes tells against the very ob- 
jects at which it aims. Prisoners taken by the Cana- 
dians have told how units which failed to hold positions 
assigned to them are punished by being sent to other 
points of even greater danger or by being kept in the 
trenches far beyond their usual span of duty. These 
prisoners explained that, having failed to repulse attack, 
they knew they would be victimised when they got back 
to their own lines, so they felt tlieir best course was to 
surrender. 

What surprises the war investigator is not only the 
quickness with which the Dominion men have taken to 
warfare, but the completeness with which their Govern- 



THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 67 

ment has equipped its Armies. The Canadians brought 
everything with them, from highly skilled surgeons 
and nurses to maple sugar. Every one knows that 
there are no better hospitals in the w^orld than such in- 
stitutions as the Royal Victoria in Montreal, and Ca- 
nadian nursing is famous all over North America, from 
Edmonton to Key West, from North Sydney to San 
Francisco. It was to be expected, therefore, that de- 
spite the criticisms of disgruntled politicians the Cana- 
dian medical arrangements in France would be excellent. 
One of the best hospitals that I have seen since the be- 
ginning of the war is their fine one at St. Cloud, just 
outside Paris. 

I spent a couple of days with the Canadian soldiers 
and found that they had no cause of complaint of any 
sort, except that, unlike the British, they cannot go home 
on leave, and are therefore doubly exiled, and that they 
wxre equipped at the outset with the Ross rifle, which 
they told me was an excellent weapon for match shoot- 
ing, but a real friend to the Boche, as a Nova Scotian 
explained, when it came to warfare. It does not take a 
Canadian long to make up his mind. The Ross rifle 
was automatically abandoned by the soldiers, and they 
are now armed with our serviceable weapon, which is 
as able as any to withstand the mud and violence of war. 

Just a word as to the constitution of the Canadian 
Army. The earliest contingents were naturally composed 
of a considerable proportion of emigrants from the Old 
Country. Latterly, native-born Canadians have pre- 
dominated. In fact, on my second day with the Cana- 
dian troops I encountered none but Canadians, both 
French and English-speaking, with the Americans whom 
I have described elsewhere. The French Canadians have 
so far not enlisted in numbers commensurate with the 



68 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

population of the great French provinces. But those 
who are in France are enthusiastic soldiers. Their en- 
thusiasm is largely for the cause of their French kins- 
men. It is probable that if the French side could be ex- 
plained in Quebec by some of the brave French priests 
from the trenches, French Canada's share would be more 
worthy. To meet them marching along a cobble-stoned 
road of Flanders, dressed exactly like our English sol- 
diers, but speaking French, is one of the thousand con- 
fusing incidents of the front. Captain Papineau told 
me that these Canadian Frenchmen have brought back to 
France the old folk-songs taken away by their ancestors 
between two and three centuries ago. Sometimes as 
they pass through the French villages singing their songs 
the old inhabitants come out to hear lilts that had almost 
passed from their memory. A Parisian journalist told 
me that their French has intermingled with it many sea 
terms. The emigres of that time were largely from Brit- 
tany and its ports, and to this day they continue the sea 
talk of their fathers. 

One of my Canadian glimpses was a little procession 
of shattered-looking enemy prisoners, with their crest- 
fallen officers, all in very different mood from those with 
whom I had conversed twelve months before. They 
were not only cowed, but — what I have never seen in 
Prussian officers before — shabby as to their clothes. It 
was explained to me by a Canadian who spoke German 
that it is the arrival of the big guns that has alarmed 
them. For years they had relied on big guns, and now 
the British and French have bigger guns. Something 
that had never entered into the calculations had appeared. 

Let me quote from some documents captured upon 
them. Here writes a lieutenant of the 170th Regiment: — 

"You are still in Champagne and no longer in the 



THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 69 

witches' cauldron on the edge of which we are sitting, 
always waiting. During the last few days the air has 
been alive with aviators, and still more so with heavy 
shells which have been flying over our heads. Yesterday 
at noon there was an intense bombardment, frightfully 
near us, at Beaumont, and an attack which is said to have 
been repulsed. The number of guns, and of the heaviest 
calibres, too, that the English possess is uncanny, and 
the amount of ammunition they fire off quite fabulous. 
And in addition, which is so bad, their airmen are con- 
stantly over our lines, discover our batteries so that they 
may be peppered, and are always attacking our captive 
balloons, which is the same thing as putting our eyes 
out. Meanv/hile the sky is black with captive balloons 
and hostile airmen — but of that I will say nothing, it 
would be merely pouring water into the Rhine. Solely 
the English artillery, the English Flying Corps and their 
balloon observation, have given them the success they 
have attained. That they have gained no more, in spite 
of all, is due to our German infantry. We could save 
several thousands of lives if only we had the English 
airmen and gunners. It makes one despair when one 
thinks of it all." 

From a Bavarian: — 

"The war fanatics and their friends ought to go 
through this literal hell and feel its effects on their own 
bodies, and then they themselves would surely come to 
the decision : Peace, peace at any price is the one and 
only maxim that ought to direct the Government's pol- 
icy." 

A Company Report, 5th Guard Grenadier Regiment : — 

"I urgently request that I may be relieved to-morrow 
night, in case no relief takes place to-day. The men 
have to lie in holes (there are no longer any dug-outs 



70 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

in my sector). In addition there is very brisk and well- 
aimed artillery and trench mortar fire. We are so ex- 
hausted physically and mentally that with the best will 
(and that is not lacking) we are no longer in that phys- 
ical state of readiness that is absolutely essential." 

A private's letter : — 

"Not a day passes but the English let off their gas 
waves over our trenches at one place or another. People 
five or six miles behind the front have become uncon- 
scious from the tail of the gas clouds. Its effects are 
felt at even 7^ miles behind the front. One has only 
to look at the rifles after a gas attack to see what deadly 
stuff it is. They are red with rust, as if they had lain 
for weeks in the mud. And the effect of the continuous 
bombardment is indescribable." 

From a man of the i ith R.I.R. : — 

"We entrained at Savigny and at once knew our 
destination — our old 'blood bath/ the Somme. We re- 
lieved the 119th on October 7 and had dreadful casual- 
ties that night. The 9th Company dwindled to 29 men ; 
two platoons were taken prisoners, and the rest were 
buried in the dug-outs. Our company has up to date 
lost 30 men." 

From a letter written by a man in hospital: — 

"Our regiment was suddenly taken from Flanders 
and flung into the Somme district. Twelve days we 
stayed there and were completely smashed up. Ten days 
I endured that hell and came to the end of my strength." 

From another : — 

"Yes, my dear comrade, I have been on the Somme, 
but can only tell you that I have been through a great 
deal in this war. Such a slaughter of men "as there was 
there I have not yet experienced, for in two days our 
division was wiped out. I cannot help wondering that 



THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 71 

I came off with a whole skin, but there were not many of 
us." 

From a man of the 3rd Reserve Ersatz Regiment: — 
"The officers we have up to the rank of captain are 
mostly boys, who have no idea of anything. They draw 
high pay and have food and drink in abundance. We, 
on the other hand, live miserably. We do not receive by 
a long way what we should. The German Government 
is always writing about other States, and the German 
Government is far worse. The German Government 
deceives the people in a very shameful way: one sees it 
now very clearly in this wholesale murder. One can 
hardly help being ashamed of being a German. We must 
turn our rifles round and destroy the whole Government. 
Dear Grete, if I should happen not to return, then think 
how I have written to you about it all, that the gang 
has caused us to be killed for fun and for sport. It is 
very different from the English. That is why they have 
not nearly so many losses. If only one of us shows him- 
self, then they use up plenty of ammunition; but they 
work in hundreds without cover, and our guns don't fire. 
They are not allowed to — there is a shortage of am- 
munition. The newspapers write, of course, that the 
enemy is short of ammunition. By that they mean 
that we ourselves are. It is quite clear that Germany 
is losing and is getting into a terrible state. It is all 
right for the upper ten thousand. The canteens make 
a profit of two or three hundred per cent., not for us, 
of course, as they ought to do, but for the officers' club. 
The officers here live in great luxury. In the line the 
officers are in bomb-proof dug-outs. We, on the other 
hand, have filthy, wet tumbledown holes. The officers 
and others have it in their hands to take away our food, 
which we ought to have, but do not get. I have heard 



72 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

it only too often from non-commissioned officers and old 
soldiers that if we had better leadership we should often 
have been able to do something without heavy losses, but 
we are generally too late, or do it in tlie wrong way 
and with heavy loss. If the young officers did not swank 
so much and treated the men more like human beings we 
should be more content and more would be accomplished ; 
but we hate our officers. We are bound to, for what mis- 
erable grub we get, while those swine live on the fat of 
the land! 

"Here, in Tenbrielen, where the airmen throw bombs, 
and where we shall get artillery fire very shortly, there 
is a dug-out for the officers, but none for the men. In 
tliis wholesale murder we get to know completely how 
much we are under the knout." 



Expressions of misery such as these are being voiced 
by most of the prisoners captured anywhere between 
Alsace and Nieuport, but especially on the Somme and 
Ancre. Excursions to other theatres of the war are re- 
garded as more or less joy rides by the Prussian and 
Bavarian soldiers. 

The citizen armies of the British, the Dominions, and 
the French peoples have anchored the greater part of the 
real German forces in front of them, within easy reach 
of London and Paris. It is the German object to detach 
these armies of ours and scatter them in little packets all 
over the world, in order that we shall not kill so many 
Prussians and Bavarians. The Canadians, who are 
clear-sighted people, accustomed to big tasks, see this sit- 
uation very plainly, and one leaves the magnificent Ca- 
nadian Army with a feeling of content that they, at 



THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 73 

any rate, have not been recklessly dispersed, but are a 
compact wedge and perpetual menace to the great body 
of Germans immediately facing them in the dreary 
snowscape of North- Western France. 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 

It is a strange sensation, that of being the only man 
in civihan clothes among hundreds of thousands of sol- 
diers. 

At first the attention one receives from eyes always 
either curious or suspicious is embarrassing, and even 
after some weeks of the armies one never quite gets used 
to the situation. It is but natural that soldiers have no 
use for any but soldiers in war-time. Ofricers and men 
may not appear to be anxious, or working with great 
intensity, but every one in an army knows that he is part 
of an intricate machine, and that although his part may 
be only a small one, it is essential to the whole. 



A civilian, therefore, is an intruder, a mere passenger 
among an overworked crew. Almost the only civilians 
who are ever to be found in civilian costume close to 
the fighting-line are members of Parliament, members 
of the French Chamber of Deputies, or an occasional ir- 
regular correspondent. Regular correspondents, both 
with the French and British Armies, are in uniform. 
Even the kinematogaph operators with the French Army 
are in uniform, and wear the steel helmet of the troops — 
as well they may, for a stray shot from a rifle or a 
fragment of shrapnel may wander far from its intended 
path, and now and then the kinematograph operator, if 
he is to take a great picture, can only do so by getting 

77 



78 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

close to the enemy. Armies objected to civilians at the 
beginning of the war because they feared them as spies. 
It is now thought, however, that spies with the armies 
have been practically eradicated; and if there be any 
spies at the Front, they are not so foolish as to wear 
the ordinary overcoat and cap of civilian life, inviting as 
this would do a demand for passes and other papers at 
every turn. 



One's first impression of war is chaos and confusion,, 
and the immensity of it all. 

Miles back from the battle-line, it may be a hundred 
miles or only twenty, are the bases at which all the army 
supplies are first assembled and stored. We will say 

that the base is the port of , and from that base are 

supplied one hundred thousand men, with their horses, 
if they have them, their motors, bicycles, rifles, guns 
great and small, machine-guns, bombs, aeroplanes, ob- 
servation balloons, clothes, medical stores, beef, bacon, 
butter, cheese, jam, pickles, pepper, salt, shells of all sizes, 
cartridges, forage, harness, cards, portable hospitals, am- 
bulance-wagons, games, and a hundred and one other 
things which will suggest themselves to any person who 
has had something to do with the equipment of a single 
soldier since the war began. All these supplies have ta 
be kept at high-water mark in regular daily rotation, and 
one easily understands how it is that in the British Army 
the all-round cost of a soldier is between five and six 
pounds a week. Realising that what one sees before one 
are only the supplies for one hundred thousand men, it 
requires very little effort of the imagination to picture the 
colossal stores needed for the four millions of men who 
are fighting in Belgium and France alone. 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 79 

The first impression, therefore, of war, is the immen- 
sity and complication of it. 

The next and more mature impression that one gets 
is that now war has settled down to a regular business, 
it proceeds at the bases with the clockwork regularity 
of a great business. 



Near most of the bases are the base hospitals. On 
what a gigantic scale are preparations made for the cas- 
ualties in modern war! How truly wonderful are these 
hospitals, whether they be of the Royal Army Medical 
Corps, the British Red Cross Society, or the Order of 
St. John of Jerusalem! If there has been much fighting 
recently, the hotels which have been turned into hospitals 
and the remarkable hut hospitals will be filled. There 
never was a more wonderful work done in the world's 
history than the care of the wounded soldiers of the 
British Empire in this great struggle. On the north-west 
of France, between Staples and Wimereux, are literally 
miles of hut hospitals, situated on high, dry grotmd, on 
well-built foundations, with well-made roads, electric 
light, and perfect operating theatres and dental parlours 
■ — hospitals just as good as the very best of their kind 
in our great cities at home, and staffed by men in the 
highest position in the medical profession, many of them 
having given up large practices in London, Montreal, or 
Sydney, as the case may be.^ Elsewhere behind the lines 
are other hospitals of various types. To these establish- 
ments are attached wonderful convoys of ambulances. 



* Elsewhere in this volume T have dealt with the Medical Services 
in a chapter entitled "The War Doctors." 



80 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

Though the precision and violence of modern weapons 
may have greatly increased the danger of warfare, sci- 
ence, Listerism, and mechanical ingenuity have come to 
the rescue by providing all sorts of means by which the 
lives of the wounded are saved. Chief among these is 
the motor-ambulance, which swiftly brings the wounded 
man from the casualty clearing-station in the field to a 
hospital where he is more thoroughly attended to, and 
then direct or to railhead for dispatch to the nearest base 
hospital. It is wonderful to think that there are men 
who have been seriously wounded, given due medical 
attention, taken to the base, and brought to London, all 
in less than eighteen hours. 

In addition to land hospitals, there are floating hos- 
pitals, most beautifully fitted up, literally sea-palaces for 
the wounded. John Bull has indeed taken good care of 
those who have suffered in his cause. Let us hope, and 
see to it, that he will he as thoughtful for the disabled 
and their dependents in the future. 



Leaving the base, one is naturally anxious to reach 
actual warfare as speedily as one can. So much has been 
written about the British and the Belgian trenches, in 
which I have often stood, that I think it would be more 
interesting if I described in detail the approach to the 
great battle of Verdun, one of the greatest struggles in 
the history of the world. 

Verdun is in Eastern France, about one hundred and 
fifty miles from Paris, and the battle zone began long, 
long before you get to the neighbourhood of Verdun 
itself. I went to Verdun by auto-car. The railways, of 
course, are blocked with cannon, ammunition, food, and 
troops. 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 81 

Long before reaching the front, twenty-five miles from 
the battle, it had been obvious that we were approaching 
some great event. Whole villages were filled with sol- 
diers, resting or waiting to be called into the line. There 
were great fields full of artillery, "parks," as they are 
called, and vast plains covered with wagons at close in- 
tervals. As for wheeled vehicles, whenever I see one 
now I think of the war. Soldiers frequently travel by 
motor-omnibuses of all kinds from their rest places to the 
threshold of the firing-line, but there are in Europe hun- 
dreds of thousands, I might say millions, of horse ve- 
hicles of all sizes and shapes. Both England and France 
have responded wonderfully to the call for transport. 

In August, 1 9 14, we at once requisitioned trades- 
men's delivery vans. It was amusing at that time at the 
British Front to see motors belonging to well-known 
English, Scotch, and Irish breweries going on their way 
to the Front laden with soldiers or shells, and also to see 
pleasure motor charabancs with the names of Margate, 
Blackpool and Scarborough emblazoned thereon. These, 
however, have mostly been either superseded or painted 
the dull military grey and khaki which one associates 
with this grim, grim war. 



Waiting, and ominous, are vast arrays of ambulances, 
both horse and motor. 

Then one comes across huge reserve stores of am- 
munition. It has been stated that up to the time at which 
I was there (/\pril, 1916) the Germans had fired fifteen 
million of shells during the battles for Verdun. 

A million is a very large number. People use the 
terms thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions 
glibly and rather vaguely. Certain it is, however, that 



82 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

the French, when I was with them, had millions of re- 
serve shells. I coimted certain sections containing a 
thousand shells, and could judge roughly how many times 
the amount of space occupied was represented by quanti- 
ties of other shells of the same size which I saw. It 
was in this way easy to arrive at the fact that of great 
and little shells the French had many millions. Shells 
for the 75 — or the British three-inch — gun take up com- 
paratively little space when standing on end. 

But it is not only ammunition and soldiers that are 
going along the road to the battle. There are the great 
supplies of bread and meat. The French, covering their 
Paris motor-omnibuses with perforated zinc, transformed 
them into meat wagons. Everything now goes to the 
battle on wheels. 

H: :|c H« * * 

It is rarely that one hears bands in modern war. Once, 
on my way to the battle of Verdun, I came across some- 
thing that looked like a war picture — a squadron of 
lancers with their pennants gaily streaming, preceded by 
a corps of buglers. 

For the rest this war is a horrible, grim, mechanical 
business. Bravery, of course, still counts, and British 
and French bravery has done much to meet the superior- 
ity in big guns which the Germans undoubtedly had at 
the beginning. 

Considerably away from the firing-line, five, eight, 
ten, or even twenty-five miles, are the headquarters of 
the various armies. War is not directed from the bat- 
tlefield as of yore. The idea of Napoleon and Welling- 
ton eyeing each other through telescopes, which it is 
alleged they did, seems ridiculous to a modern soldier 
who has not seen the little field of Waterloo. The Ger- 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 83 

man and French generals at the battle of Verdun were 
always at least twenty miles apart. The headquarters 
of a general might be the headquarters of a railway con- 
tractor, with its maps, plans, clerks, typewriters, and 
innumerable telephones. There is nearly always a wire- 
less station outside, where the various communiques can 
be read. 

My experience of such headquarters, and I have been 
to a good many, is that there is apparently less excited 
discussion of the particular battle than you may witness 
at home between any two people talking of it in the club 
or railway train. There is no lack of information, be- 
cause the staff at headquarters is linked up by long-dis- 
tance and other telephones with the soldier in the field. 
There is generally distributed each day a little bulletin 
giving the soldier some idea of what is going on. Other- 
wise, existing as he does in a line that is hundreds of 
miles in length, he would have the vaguest notion of 
what is taking place. Indeed, it is the newspaper that 
has come from London or from Paris which is his chief 
source of information, for in those great centres all the 
news of the war is collected, explained by maps, and 
put forth in a way that makes it extremely easy for the 
soldier on the spot to understand. I followed the battle 
of Verdun from a large staff map, but also from maps 
cut from London newspapers, which I found to be won- 
derfully accurate. 



Once inside the final cordon of sentries, the civilian 
at the war attracts but very little attention. People do 
not know who he is and do not care, but they realise 
that he could not have got there without proper authority, 
and as everybody is very busy with his own part of the 



81 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

great affair, the civilian sinks into the comparative in-' 
significance which he should rightly occupy. My own 
personal feeling was one of regret that I was not able 
to do something to help in what w^as going on. 

When I reached the battle of Verdun I was confused 
at first as to what was happening ; but I had with me two 
most excellent young officers who explained the position. 
I was reluctant to use their services, and was relieved 
to find that while showing me what was taking place, 
which they did by signs, for the noise was sometimes too 
great to permit conversation except in yells, they were 
carrying out part of their appointed work of observation 
and were busily making notes. 



Does the civilian incur danger in war? It is, of course, 
the object of military authorities to see that he is kept 
as safe as possible, but in these days of snipers, stray 
bullets, shell fragments, and what not, he must share 
to some extent, however carefully guarded, the dangers 
of the day. I have had a number of narrow escapes in 
the war. Everybody has had. I did not like it. I do not 
believe that any one does. I cannot conceive that any- 
body likes to be in a village that is being shelled, or in an 
open space that is being shelled, or in a motor-car going 
along a road that is being shelled. I have noticed that 
the older and more experienced the soldier, the less he 
takes chances. There are chances even in looking 
through periscopes at a considerable distance from the 
enemy. 

There are chances in sheltering behind the walls of 
shelled towns, for the freaks of shell fragments are ex- 
traordinary, as are the freaks of artillery bombardment. 
In some villages one will find the whole of both sides 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 85 

of a street down, with the exception of, here and there, 
a cottage absolutely untouched. The effect on the earth 
of one of these terrific bombardments is to furrow it, 
plough it, and made deep holes in it, as though some 
upheaval of Nature had taken place. Occasionally one 
will find a whole area bombarded entirely out of recog- 
nition — buildings, trees, and trenches so smashed and 
destroyed as to give much the effect of the two scenes of 
earthquake I have witnessed in the course of my travels. 
Very often, owing to mis-information, the enemy has 
bombarded for two or three days points that have not 
been occupied at all. It is not true that every bullet has 
its billet, and that every shell does material damage. 
Men are so clever in concealing the whereabouts of them- 
selves and their guns in the present kind of warfare that 
I do not suppose one shell in a hundred has any bearing 
upon a military result. A great many of the people who 
read these lines will have seen shells made, and one 
regrets the waste of human effort in this horrible, but, 
unfortunately, necessary business. 



When I first went into the war zones in the early days 
of the great conflict the soldiers were as strange to the 
war as civilians are now, but they have learned much. 
Above all, they have learned never to show themselves. 
They are infinitely more careful than is a civilian on his 
first visit. "We never go along such and such a route 
on a dry day," said an officer, "because the dust raised 
by the motor reveals our presence. . . . We never go 
along that road at night because the Germans believe 
we bring up supplies or reliefs by that route. . . . We 
long ago ceased wearing that kind of cap, because, when 



86 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

wet, the sun giistens on it and it forms a kind of helio- 
graph." 

^ H? 4c H: ^ 

Of the many devices to trick and deceive the enemy I 
will not speak. They have multiplied amazingly during 
the long, weary months since the beginning of the war. 
I believe the British Army, with the Canadians and 
Australians, is pre-eminent in inventing all kinds of sur- 
prises. I have elsewhere referred to the fact that Ger- 
man prisoners at Verdun spoke to me of their satisfac- 
tion at being away from Ypres, where the ferocious 
British are! Our soldiers are individual. They em- 
bark on little individual enterprises. The German, though 
a good soldier when advancing with numbers under 
strict discipline, is not so clever at these devices. He was 
never taught them before the war, and his whole training 
from childhood upwards has been to obey, and to obey in 
numbers. He has not played individual games. Foot- 
ball, which develops individuality, has only been intro- 
duced into Germany in comparatively recent times. His 
amusements have been gymnastic discipline to the word 
of command, and swimming and diving displays of like 
kind, at which the Germans are very wonderful. It is a 
grave reflection on the deeds of British or French sol- 
diers to say that the Germans are not brave. They are 
brave, but in a way different from our kind of bravery. 
They do not take war in the British spirit, which they 
consider to be frivolous and too much akin to sport, or in 
the French spirit, which is that of the fierceness that 
comes to men who are defending their native land. 

* :(: :)t * * 

Germans are naturally, so far as the Prussians and 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR ST 

Bavarians are concerned, extremely cruel. German non- 
commissioned officers when taken prisoners with their 
men treat their private soldiers with a bullying savagery 
that is astonishing, and officer prisoners decline abso- 
lutely to pay any attention to their men, even though 
they have been wounded. A French officer, who had 
been taken prisoner by the Germans, told me that though 
the Germans treated their lightly wounded men with 
extreme care, because they wished to get them back into 
the firing-line quickly, the very badly wounded cases were 
neglected until the last. 

Indeed, the wounded man is not the hero in war that 
we make him at home. He is well looked after, but 
the chief object of an army is to get fit men where they 
can do most work, and to get them forward as rapidly 
as possible. Thus it is that the advance of new men to 
the battle from places where they are being rested, to- 
gether with their supplies, takes precedence of every- 
thing on the road or railway. The object of both sides 
is to win, and while, as I say, every care is taken of the 
wounded, priority is given to the forwarding of fighting 
men. 



France is so well supplied with roads that often as 
not a certain road is reserved for traffic going to the 
battle, and another for that which is returning. I often 
wonder what would happen if war were to take place in 
England, with our small, narrow lanes and w^ > kept but 
illogically arranged roadways. There would i>e beyond 
question an immense and dangerous congestion of traf- 
fic. The road, say, from London to Dover, one of the 
principal highways in England, is in one part extremely 
narrow and tortuous. I presume the authorities have 



88 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

thought out all these things, but it is a fact, which any 
foreigner can detect by looking at our maps, that we are 
not well provided with strategic railways or strategic 
roads. In France they have also the great advantage of 
wonderful canals, not the ditches to which we give that 
appellation, but wide waterways carrying big barges, 
which, turned into hospitals, have been of the greatest 
use in the transport of cases requiring great care. These 
floating hospitals are quiet, cool, and well ventilated, 
and have been of great utility. 



As the war has progressed, and one must always bear 
in mind that each month has changed it, there has been 
a great development of air fighting. The first air fight 
I witnessed was a very vague affair, in which neither side 
seemed to do very much, but every pair of eyes for miles 
was watching it. To-day air fights are very common oc- 
currences, and on the whole are most dramatic and in- 
teresting to watch, but they do not engage anything like 
the attention they originally did. The fighting aero- 
plane, with its handy machine-gun so arranged that it 
can assail the enemy from many angles, is developing 
every month. It used to be said that the air was the 
safest place in the war. That is no longer true. A great 
French general, who knew what he was talking about, 
told me that the air fighters were, he thought, the most 
courageous men of all. When I looked at the modern 
■fighting ..eroplane, described in the next chapter, with 
its 200 h.p. engine, and compared it with the planes of 
seven or eight years ago in which I made a few flights, 
I realised that war has developed the aeroplane at a 
speed that would not have been possible in peace-time. 
Yet even now human ingenuity has not been able to in- 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 89 

vent an aeroplane that can hover or keep even relatively 
still in the air. 



The war zone is a world apart. After a few days' 
immersion therein one becomes so completely absorbed in 
the activities around that the outer world is entirely for- 
gotten. There is practically no night or day in that 
curious land, and there is sometimes as much activity 
in the hours of darkness as in the hours of daylight. 
There are none of the long reliefs from fighting that 
were experienced so lately as the Napoleonic wars. 
There is no longer a going into winter quarters. The 
battle of Verdun was commenced in the freezing month 
of February. The strain of modern warfare is, there- 
fore, so great tliat I am of the opinion that as much leave 
as possible should be given to the men, and more to offi- 
cers — and especially to officers of the higher command. 
I know this is not the view of those who think that 
continued absences make for slack discipline. I have not 
observed or heard of any actual cases of weakness in 
discipline due to holiday. I have, however, met at the 
Front many men I knew in peace time who are showing 
sign of war fatigue, and a tired man is of no use in war 
or any other worldly affair. 

Three years ago \try few people had any idea of the 
nature of the coming warfare. Not one modern mili- 
tary writer gave warning of the intensity of the atten- 
tion with which each army would watch the other at close 
range and with all kinds of new and unexpected weapons. 



HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE, IN AN 
AEROPLANE, IN A TANK 



HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE, IN AN 
AEROPLANE, IN A TANK 

The appearance of His Majesty's landships commonly 
known throughout the world as Tanks is fairly familiar, 
but I do not remember reading any account of a journey 
in one of them. I am among the privileged few who 
have enjoyed the entirely different sensations of Tank- 
ing, Submarining and Aeroplaning, and I propose to set 
down here my experiences of all three methods of move- 
ment. 

The history of the Tank is the history of the adapta- 
bility and the reticence of the English People, displayed 
whenever such qualities are necessary to the attainment 
of any urgent purpose. Nobody invented the Tanks. 
They grew. The idea behind them is as old as the Ro- 
man testudo and battering-ram. They are a combina- 
tion of both. I reveal no secret in describing the Tanks, 
for at least one of our fleet has fallen into German 
hands and the enemy have had ample opportunity to 
study this marvellous box of mechanism. 

In the light-hearted way in which we Britons go to 
war, our soldiers name the Tanks with a frivolity which 
is intensely annoying to the thick-headed Prussian. One 
of my particular Tanks was called the "Creme de 
Menthe" . . . why neither I nor any one else knew. 
We entered the huge steel tortoise by a close-fitting door 
and sat within that which resembled in appearance and 
atmosphere the engine-room of a yacht. On our heads 

93 



94 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

we put leather-padded helmets such as are worn by air- 
men. They were necessary, for when these land-crabs 
get started, the men who steer them and the men who 
man the guns are buffetted about with a motion re- 
sembling that of a rowing boat in an Atlantic gale. 

We started smootlily enough along a highroad. I 
looked round at my companions. The men who form 
the crews of the Tanks are young daredevils who, fully 
knowing that they will be a special mark for every kind 
of Prussian weapon, enter upon their task in a sporting 
spirit with the same cheery enthusiasm as they would 
show for football. They soon proved to me that they 
were absolute masters of their queer machine. They 
revelled in the fact that the Tanks had been designed, 
constructed, practised, and sent over from England to 
France as a complete surprise to the enemy. They chuck- 
led as they told me how the word Tanks "had" deceived 
everybody. 

For many months these monsters were in course of 
construction in an inland English town, and all that any- 
body knew about them was that they were "Tanks," 
presumably large vessels for conveying oil or water. So 
little curiosity was aroused that a high official of the 
English railway which carried them did not even take the 
trouble to look at them. He was told to provide trans- 
port for a number of "very large tanks," and he did so 
in the ordinary course of business, not realising that his 
road was carrying one of the only original devices evolved 
during this war. 

The speed of the Creme de Menthe on the level was 
from four to five miles an hour. But the Tanks are de- 
veloping rapidly in size, speed and pushing power. Even 
the first Tanks were able to walk through a wood as easily 
as a man walks through tall grass. On the level highway 



HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE 95 

the sensation of riding in them is about that of riding 
on a reaping macliine. Suddenly the steersman turned 
off the road and drove down a deep shell-hole resembling 
a wash-out. I held on to the nearest piece of machinery 
which was not in movement: most of it was moving 
vigourously and most of it was hot. 

The great beast crept cautiously down, seeming to pick 
its way as an elephant does. Tanks have eyes, narrow 
slits of glass half a foot thick and proof against anything 
except shell. Before I had time to peer out, we had 
passed over the bottom of the shell-hole and were slowly 
but surely grinding our way up at an angle of forty-five 
degrees. 

My sensations at this moment were those of tremen- 
dous noise (noisy the Tanks are at all times) and of dis- 
comfort from gasoline fumes, and I was not a little ap- 
prehensive that the rough going, the see-sawing, the sud- 
den dipping and rising, might detonate one of the many 
hundred small shells with which the Tank was lined. 
However, the smiling optimism and enthusiasm of the 
crew dispelled anxiety, even though they could not re- 
move the discomfort. 

Once on smooth ground again, the Tank seemed to 
shake itself as though to get rid of a burden, and to be 
anxious to proceed. 

Tanks are propelled, as can be seen from photographs, 
by power applied to continuous bands known as "cater- 
pillars," familiar in some parts of the United States in 
"Connexion widi agricultural machinery. We drove for- 
ward and nosed our way through a fringe of young 
trees. We did not notice them. We had no knowledge 
for some while that we were pushing our way through 
that which would have barred the progress of either horse 
or man. Now and then some sapling would spring back 



96 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

and lash the side of our Tank. But for this the inmates 
of the steel monster would have been unaware of any 
impediment. 

Presently we stopped and the captain, after surveying 
our surroundings through one of the long narrow eyes, 
invited me to take a peep. I looked out and saw the fa- 
miliar shell-wrecked land of battle. 

"Can you see anything particular?" he asked me. I 
looked again and saw nothing to remark upon. 

"Can't you see another Tank coming up?" 

I could not see it until it was pointed out. The Tanks 
are so cunningly painted and so entirely resemble the land 
over which they travel, that they are invisible except to 
those accustomed to seek for them. After this we re- 
turned by the smoothest places possible to our starting- 
point, the door opened, and I stepped out of the dim light 
inside into the bright sunshine. 

Tanks are provided with a certain amount of food, 
drinking water and surgical field dressings. As I have 
said, they are boxes of machinery, in which no single 
inch of space is wasted. They are manned by men as 
nimble as cats, having no sense of danger. They have 
proved the best means of ferreting out and destroying 
German machine-gun nests. Single Tanks have fought 
small battles of their own against whole companies of the 
enemy. They are a real and justifiable means of waging 
war : they wage it only against soldiers, not against civil- 
ians; and the German soldiers find them terrible enemies. 
A prisoner taken a few weeks ago in Flanders said : — 
"We had been told by our newspapers to laugh at the 
tank, but we very soon found they were no laughing 
matter." 

The men who journey in them take their lives in their 
hands every time they go out. The British Army is justly 



HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE 9f 

proud of the daring and success of those who are engaged 
in this newest form of crushing MiHtarism. 

Quite a different experience from that of crawHng 
along the ground in a land-ship is a rush upward towards 
the sky in a fast war-plane. Air-travel is no novelty to 
me. It is many years since I made my first flight. I 
confess I have never found any frantic thrill in flying, I 
do not pretend to have indulged in sensational "banking" 
(that is turning sharply so that the machine leans over in 
an alarming way) or in spirals, nose-end dives, and other 
aerial gymnastics. I can imagine that a sudden inten- 
tional drop of five thousand feet such as many of our 
young airmen are accustomed to take must be somewhat 
of a strain on the nerves. But I have never allowed any 
of my young pilot friends to go in for what they call 
"parlour-tricks" when I have been a passenger with them, 

There are only two moments of excitement in ordinary 
air-travel. One of these is when you first learn, by being- 
told, that the machine has actually left the ground. The 
second is when you rapidly approach the earth in your 
descent. The ground seems to be shooting up towards 
you. It appears to be impossible that the pilot can avoid 
bringing his machine to rest without a smash. You brace 
yourself for the shock. You wonder whether your will 
makes your last wishes quite clear. . . , Then you find 
yourself in a twinkling skimming along on an even keel 
parallel with the ground below. The pilot smiles. He 
knows what a passenger's sensations are the first time an 
air voyage is undertaken. He dips again, skims again, 
once more puts the machine's nose down. It lightly 
touches the soil, hops once or twice, then runs gently for 
a few yards and comes to a stop. 

That is how one feels at first. After a journey or two, 



98 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

in the air these sensations wear off. Unfortunately the 
other sensations which are not exciting or thrilHng, but 
merely uncomfortable, persist, however often one may 
fly. It is almost always cold in an aeroplane. It is al- 
ways noisy. If you want to speak to the pilot, you must 
bend your lips to his ear and bellow. Although the field 
of vision is vast, twenty miles each way even when the 
height attained is no more than moderate, it is not possi- 
ble to see anything very clearly. I recollect seeing 
Chartres Cathedral once when I was in the air not far 
from Versailles, but as a rule objects are hard to distin- 
guish unless one is a trained observer. The speed at 
which one flies has a confusing effect. Strangely enough, 
the sensation of vertigo is scarcely felt by any who make 
ascents by aeroplane. I am so subject to giddiness that 
I do not like looking down from a high building. But I 
have never felt giddy in the air. 

Flying in a battle-plane is not essentially different from 
flying in a machine not built specially for war-work. 
The battle-plane, if it be of the latest type, goes up more 
vertically than any of the pre-war touring machines 
could. It needs scarcely any run on the ground. It 
shoots into the air with a marvellous energy and pre- 
cision. It has more room in the body of it than a tour- 
ing aeroplane needed. The number of instruments car- 
ried is larger. There is perhaps a photographic camera 
for taking pictures of enemy trench systems, there may 
be hooks for bombs. There is probably a gun mounted 
in the forward part for attack and defence. As we fly 
over trenches, we can see very distinctly the dark patterns 
of the first line, second line, third line against the lighter 
colour of the soil. Then we distinguish the communica- 
tion trenches. Perhaps there may be tiny dots moving 



HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE 99 

through them. If this were enemy territory, now would 
be the moment to loose a few of our bombs. 

But we are over our own men here. They look up and 
see that the under-sides of our wings are painted with 
red, white and blue rings. They know there is nothing 
to fear. The aeroplane is the only engine of war which 
does not practice what the French call camoivflage, that is 
to say, deception. I have sometimes been asked why, in 
order to deceive the Allied troops, the Germans do not 
paint red, white and blue rings on their machines instead 
of the black iron cross which is their distinguishing mark. 
The reason is obvious, if you think for an instant. They 
would deceive their own side. The aeroplanes which so 
disguised themselves would be shot at by the German 
anti-aircraft guns. There could be no possibility of let- 
ting their gunners know that they were disguised. 

The pilot who is driving me now is one of our crack 
fliers. He has many German machines to his credit. He 
thinks no risk too great to be taken if there is a good 
chance of "bagging a Hun." He has come bacl<; often 
with his wings shot through over and over again. He 
has been wounded, he has had his machine disabled under 
him and been obliged to make "a rough landing." But 
nothing disturbs him. He pays no more heed to the little 
white balls of smoke which denote shrapnel bursting un- 
der or round about him than we should pay to a shower 
of rain. They are wonderful young men, these airmen. 
They have done infinitely valuable work in scouting, in 
directing artillery fire, in harassing the enemy by drop- 
ping bombs upon his camps, stores, railways, and base 
establishments generally. It is soldiers they are out for, 
not civilians. They have proved themselves a most mag- 
nificent force. The Fifth Arm is now indispensable in 
warfare. It has enabled gunnery to become far more ac- 



100 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

curate and deadly than ever before. No one can talk of 
degeneration while so dangerous a service finds a per- 
petual stream of young men anxious to enter it. None 
have deserved better of their country than the Royal Fly- 
ing Corps. 

^ H^ * ^ H« 

Pleasantest of the three sensations which I am describ- 
ing in this chapter is undoubtedly that of a trip in a 
Submarine. My first submarine experience was a very 
brief one many years ago in a small under-water boat, 
propelled entirely by electricity, which lay in the Seine 
near Paris. We paid 250 francs ($50) each, I remember, 
for one dive. Beyond that I do not recollect anything 
particular about it, except my apprehension that the ma- 
chine would not rise to the surface again. My first real 
submarine experience occurred just before the war. A 
small party received the permission rarely accorded to 
make a short voyage in one of our British boats. 

The world hears little in these days of British sub- 
marines or submarine officers for the simple reason that 
there are no targets for them to shoot at. The German 
Fleet lies snugly esconced in the Kiel Canal. The Ger- 
man mercantile marine is interned at Bremen, Ham- 
burg, Wilhelmshaven, Altona. Our submarines are 
therefore reduced to doing police work, watching for any 
German war-vessel that may emerge; capturing and 
bringing into port, or sinking after due notice has been 
given, any enemy trading ship which may attempt to run 
the blockade. Warning is always given. No civilian 
death has been caused by a British submarine. 

I looked forward with pleasurable anticipation to my 
under-water excursion, and my hopes were realised to 
the fullest extent. The entrance to submarines of the 
type in which I journeyed is down a long vertical man- 



HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE 101 

hole, the top of which is hermetically sealed as soon as 
the last person is on board. (Other methods of entering 
our newest submarines I will not describe.) There is 
felt, when the lid is put on, just that momentary nervous 
trepidation which precedes taking a header from a high 
diving plank. There is the same apprehension of being 
shut in as a child feels when the door of a cupboard is 
closed upon it. I can imagine there are some people 
who might suffer in a submarine from claustrophobia. 

We had no time, however, to indulge in nervous ap- 
prehensions. The lid being on, the boat was at once in 
motion, and we speeded along on the surface of a rough- 
ish sea at a pace which I had not thought possible for this 
kind of craft. A mile or so out the order was given to 
submerge. There was heard a mighty rushing of water 
into the tanks by which the submersion is effected. We 
went down with a rapidity which was a complete sur- 
prise to me, and in a few moments we were in the eternal 
silence of the under-sea. 

Travelling above, or "awash," as sailors call it, the 
submarine was propelled by its oil engines. Under the 
surface it is run by its electric batteries whose smooth, 
sweet rhythm makes progress pleasant. There was noth- 
ing to counteract this pleasant impression. All precon- 
ceived notions of a suffocating atmosphere vanished at 
once. We looked about us in complete comfort. What 
we saw was a very complex series of machines, with the 
familiar internal combustion engine of the ordinary 
motor boat. The quarters of the officers and crew are 
Spartan in their simplicity, but they neither suffer dis- 
comfort, nor have they any apparent cause for anxiety. 
I should imagine that in peace-time, when there is no 
risk of being harried by destroyers and chasers or of 
hitting a mine, submarine travelling will become popular. 



102 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

Certainly, on the roughish day on which I made my 
journey, we below the surface knew nothing of the 
waves, and it was only when we fastened our eyes to the 
periscope and saw what was going on above that we 
realised we were progressing at a very considerable 
speed. 

The periscope is in effect a camera obscura, with a 
field of vision like that of the apparatus which soldiers 
use in the trenches for seeing over the parapet without 
iDeing seen. There is always some eye in the submarine 
taking note of what is passing on the surface. They 
were rather a serious lot, the crew. There was none of 
the cheery humour of my young friends in the Tanks. 
But then this was peace-time. It is war which brings 
out the humour of the Briton. These officers and blue- 
jackets were just doing their duty in the ordinary way, 
nothing exciting about it, steering the vessel, watching 
the pressure gauges, seeing to it that every one of the 
minute pieces of machinery was performing its function. 
They took their under-water trip as a matter of course, 
an every-day experience. Nobody wore a worried look. 
Everybody was at home in their cramped quarters. The 
two outstanding features that struck me were, first, the 
perfect human discipline, and, secondly, the silver-plate- 
like appearance of the machinery. 

I can well believe that after one or two under-water 
voyages the sense of novelty would entirely wear off. 
One supposes that it must be an eerie sensation to travel 
beneath the surface of the sea, but this is imaginary 
rather than actual. I doubt whether a person put on 
board a submersible ship in a state of trance and awak- 
ened when the vessel had dived, would know whether it 
was under water or not. During our considerable ex- 
cursion we felt no lack of air, no discomfort in breath- 



HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE 103 

ing at all. There are, of course, means of supplying 
oxygen, if It should be needed. I was told that after 
twelve hours or so the air begins to become exhausted 
and those on board are affected by drowsiness. I felt 
nothing of any such sensation. We all had the satis- 
factory feeling that, while people in boats on the surface 
were being made uncomfortable by the rough sea, we 
below were travelling perfectly at our ease, seeing all 
we wanted to see and being ourselves unseen. 

At the end of the trip all were sorry when the signal 
was given to eject the water from our tanks, so that the 
boat should rise. In almost less time than it takes to 
write these words, we were on the top again, being 
rocked about like an ordinary boat. Most of us agreed 
we would much sooner travel under water. Submarin- 
ing is, indeed, altogether delightful. My first experience 
left as vivid a mark on my memory as that of the first 
drive I ever took in a powerful automobile. 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 

EFFICIENCY AND YOUTH 

Somewhere in France. 

Take this powerful pair of field-glasses in your hand. 
They were captured yesterday in a German dug-out and 
bear the famous mark of Zeiss, of Jena. Adjust them 
carefully and look well over to where dark clouds of 
shells are bursting so rapidly that they form what looks 
like a dense mass of London fog, with continuous brief 
and vivid flashes of explosions. That is Pozieres. That 
is how Fricourt looked and how Longueval is looking on 
the day this is penned. From behind where we are 
ensconced in an old German trench there come night and 
day the bang and the far-travelling scream of British 
shells. It does not seem possible that any one can emerge 
alive from those bombarded villages. 

From north to south is an irregular chain of watch- 
ful observation balloons. High and glittering in the 
sunshine are planes, directed as often as not by boys 
who in happier times would be in the boats or the play- 
ing fields. Their heroism during the Somme battles 
has never been equalled, except in this war. 

The battles of the Somme are not, of course, so easily 
witnessed as those which can be seen from the heights 
around Verdun, but they are a great deal more visible 
and understandable than the depressing artillery duels 
in the plains and swamps of Flanders. Neither photo- 

107 



108 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

graphs nor maps give much real impression of the great 
panorama, which is, indeed, only possible for an on- 
looker to understand when accompanied by one who has 
witnessed the steady conquest of the German trenches 
from the beginning of the movement made on July i 
(1916). What is easy to realise, and so cheering to 
our soldiers, is that we give the Germans full measure 
and more in the matter of guns and shells. A couple of 
hours in any place where the battles can be properly ob- 
served is enough for the nerves of the average civilian, 
for to see battles properly one must be well in reach of 
the enemy, and so when we have had our fill we make 
our way along a communication trench to where a small 
and unobtrusive motor has been hidden. 

Presently we come to the roads where we see one 
of the triumphs of the war, the transport which brings 
the ammunition for the guns and the food for the men, 
a transport which has had to meet all kinds of unex- 
pected difficulties. The last is water, for our troops are 
approaching a part of France which is as chalky and dry 
as our South Downs. 

Communication being as urgent as transport, the 
Royal Engineers have seen to it that the large area of 
Northern and North-West France in which our Armies 
are operating has been linked up by a telephonic system 
unique. It is no mere collection of temporary wires 
strung from tree to tree. The poles and wires are in 
every way as good as those of the Post Office at home. 
The installation might indeed be thought to be extrava- 
gant, but cheap telephoning is notoriously bad telephon- 
ing. A breakdown of communications which might be 
caused by the fierce wind and electric storms which have 
happened so frequently in the war would spell a great 
inconvenience or even worse. An indistinct telephone is 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 109 

useless. And so, marching with the Army, and linking 
up a thousand essential points, is a telephone service that 
cannot be bettered. To-day it would be quite possible 
for the Commander-in-Chief, if he so desired, to call up 
London from beyond Fricourt, for our wires are already 
in places where we saw them burying the blackened 
corpses of dead Germans, and where the sound of great 
guns makes it sometimes necessary to shout in order to 
make ourselves heard in a conversation. 

Every officer or head of department of importance 
in the British zone has a telephone at his hand, so that 
he may give and receive orders, not absolutely secret, 
by the quickest and most popular means of communica- 
tion. Where necessary, the English telephones are linked 
up with the trunk lines of the French Government, for 
which purposes interpreters are placed in the exchanges. 
The speed of communication is remarkable. It varies, of 
course, with the amount of business, but I have seen a 
man call up Paris, London, and the seaport bases in 
France all within an hour. Supplementing the tele- 
phonic system is a telegraphic link, and there is also the 
wireless. The Army Signal Corps is to be congratulated 
on a fine achievement. Over and above these there are 
the motor despatch riders, some of whose experiences 
during the war have been as thrilling as those of our air 
boys. The noisy nuisance of our peace-time roads at 
home has been a prime factor in the prompt waging of 
war. Motor-cycles and portable telephones appear in 
the most out-of-the-way spots. Far beyond Fricourt I 
met these cyclists making their way in and out and 
around the shell holes. 

A few days later, when visiting one of the workshops 
at the base, I saw the wrecks of similar machines twisted 
and smashed out of all recognition by shrapnel, each 



110 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

speaking of an adventure, and perhaps a tragedy. The 
fact that these derehcts were being examined for possi- 
ble repair is a portent of the rigid economy with which, 
on the French side of the Channel at any rate, and per- 
haps on both, the war is now being conducted. 

I am not, of course, permitted to give names of places, 
or numbers, or the names of the heads of departments, 
but I shall be allowed to state that the always growing 
immensity of the Armies, and the workshops behind the 
Army, is little understood at home, or even by those who 
have made frequent visits to the war zone. 

What is required, it seems to me, to bring home to the 
people of the Empire, who are so lavishly outpouring 
their blood and treasure, and also to the Allies and neu- 
trals, is a continuous demonstration by skilled writers, 
artists, lecturers, kinematograph operators, and photog- 
raphers. Now that we have real war news from the able 
scribes who are allowed to tell us freely and frankly 
what is happening, readers with imagination are awak- 
ening to the truth that we have a whole South African 
campaign and a complete Crimea every month. But of 
the war behind the war, the battles behind the battles, 
employing skilled workers considerably exceeding the 
number of the total original British Expeditionary Force, 
we have but faint glimmerings. You can understand 
the need of this vast establishment if you realise that 
every part of an instrument of war has to be accom- 
panied to France by its own attendants, its own supplies, 
and its own transport. 

The newest plane flies upwards and away with the 
speed and grace of a dragon-fly. She has been made 
perfect and beautiful for her flight by skilled expert 
mechanics. When she returns after, let us hope, her 
conquest, the boys who have escorted her in the air (one 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 111* 

of these I met was at school last year) hand her over 
again to those attendants to see if she has any rent in 
her gown or other mishap which may be speedily 
mended. When, therefore, you see an aeroplane you 
must realise that each machine has its staff. Speed and 
efficiency being prime essentials of victory, her care- 
takers must be skilled and young. As for her supplies 
there must be at hand a great quantity of spare parts 
ready to be applied instantaneously, and there must be 
men, in case of need, who can either alter or even make 
such parts. There must be those who understand her 
camera and its repair, her wireless and its working, men 
who have already learnt the mysteries of the newest 
bombs, rockets, and machine-guns. I take the aeroplane 
as an instance because of its prominence in the public 
eye. 

What applies to an aeroplane applies in other degrees 
to every kind of gun, to every form of motor or horse 
transport, ambulances, field kitchens, filters, and to a 
thousand articles which at first sight do not necessarily 
seem to be part of war-making. 

The Army behind the Army is full of originality. It 
has already improved, on the spot, much machinery 
which we had thought to have attained perfection. This 
is a war of machinery as well as of bravery, and among 
Germany's many blunders was her forget fulness of the 
British power of quick improvisation and organisation 
in unexpected circumstances, which is a secret of our 
success in building up the Empire in strange lands. 

The Army behind the Army is being squeezed for men 
for the front. In some places it can legitimately bear 
more squeezing, and it is getting it. On the other hand, 
owing to their own burning desire or to the pressure of 
the authorities men who, in the end, would have killed 



112 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

more Germans by the use of their own particular skill 
in the workshop have left the anvil, the tools, the lathe, 
or the foundry for the firing line. 

Our L. of C. in France (Lines of Communication) 
has developed to what must be one of the largest organ- 
isations in the world. It represents 6 per cent, of the 
whole of our forces in France. It has to deal with more 
spheres of human industry than I should be allowed to 
mention. Its personnel, let me repeat, is being revised 
continually by medical examinations that eliminate fit 
men for the trenches. The task is a delicate one. An 
organisation absolutely essential to victory has at length, 
and after infinite labour, by promotion of the skilled and 
rejection of the incompetent, been set on its feet. We 
must make changes with caution. 

At various times I have observed personally the great 
organisations of the Clyde, the Tyne, of Belfast, of 
Woolwich, Chicago, in and about Paris, at St. Etienne, 
at the Creusot works, in Hamburg, in Essen, and at 
Hoechst on the Rhine, and I say without hesitation that, 
making allowances for war time, our lines of communi- 
cation organisation, superimposed as it is upon the over- 
worked French railways and roads and in a country 
where there is no native labour to be had, is as near per- 
fection as ever it can be. 

And I say more that, difficult as economy and war are 
to mate, I have on the occasion of this visit and in con- 
trast to the days of 19 14 seen nothing wasted. In the 
early months of the war there was waste at home and 
abroad arising from lack of control of our national habit 
of spending money with both hands. I remember a 
certain French village I visited where every tiny mite 
was filling its mouth with English bread and jam. To- 
day there is enough food and a greater variety of food 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 113 

than ever before, but there is no waste that is visible 
even to an inquisitive critic. 

Coming to the front, not only in the high commands 
and among regimental officers but along the L. of C, 
is a pleasing proportion of Scotch folk who, while gen- 
erous in the giving of ambulances, are not accustomed 
to waste anything in war or at any other time. To-day, 
almost before the reek and fume of battle are over, al- 
most before our own and the enemy dead are all buried, 
the Salvage Corps appears on the bloody and shell- 
churned scene to collect and pile unused cartridge and 
machine-gun belts, unexploded bombs, old shell cases, 
damaged rifles, haversacks, steel helmets, and even old 
rags, which go to the base, and are sold at £50 a ton. It 
is only old bottles, which with old newspapers, letters, 
meat tins, and broken boxes are a feature of the battle- 
fields, that do not appear to be worthy of salvage. 

Regarding the utilisation of waste products there is 
as much ingenuity and industry along the Lines of Com- 
munication as would satisfy the directorate of the most 
highly over-organised German fahrik. At more than 
one place I saw over 1,000 French and Belgian girls 
cleansing and repairing clothing that had come back 
from the front. They work and talk and sing with alac- 
rity, and I witnessed the process of the patching and re- 
constructing of what looked like an impossible waterproof 
coat, all in the course of a few moments. Such labour 
saves the British nation hundreds of thousands of 
pounds, and is considered well rewarded at a wage of 
half-a-crown a day. 

Elsewhere I saw men using the most modern North- 
ampton machinery for soling and heeling any pair of old 
boots that would stand the operation, and such footgear 
as was useless was not wasted, for by an ingenious con- 



114 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

trivance invented on the spot by a young Dublin boot- 
maker the upper parts of these boots were being con- 
verted into bootlaces by the thousand. 

In the Army machine shops the waste grease is saved 
and the oil which escapes from every such establishment 
is ingeniously trapped and sold to local soapmakers at 
the equivalent of its present very high value. 

Since the early days of chaos and muddle we have 
conveyed across the seas machine shops and mechanics 
which must exceed by twice or thrice the total of those 
in a humming town like Coventry. Such factories have 
had to be manned, and manned with labour able to meet 
the sudden emergencies of war. The labour has all had 
to come from home. Clerks, engineers, fitters, mechan- 
ics, quickly settled down to the monotonous regularity 
of military life and the communal existence of the bar- 
racks, huts, and tents in which they live. True it is that 
every consideration possible has been shown for their 
happiness, comfort, and amusement. They have their 
own excellent canteens, reading rooms, and places of en- 
tertainment. They are not forgotten by the Y.M.C.A. 
or by the Salvation Army and Church Army, whose 
work cannot be too highly spoken of. They are indi- 
vidually looked after by their own heads of departments 
with solicitude and kindness. The gramophone, the joy 
of tlie dug-outs, the hospitals, and the billets, is a never- 
ending source of entertainment. 

The workers are by no means unable to amuse them- 
selves. They are well provided with kinematographs 
and frequent boxing tournaments. Gardening, too, is 
one of their hobbies, and from the casualty clearing sta- 
tions at the front to the workers' huts at the bases are 
to be counted thousands of English-made gardens. The 
French, who know as little of us as we do of them, were 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 115 

not a little surprised to find that wherever he sojourns 
the British workman insists on making himself a gar- 
den. At a great veterinary hospital at one of the bases 
the men living a considerable distance from a town and 
away from other pastimes have planted for themselves 
gardens that would be a credit to any prosperous Lon- 
don suburb in peace time. 

The energy, enterprise, and spirit of the base com- 
mandants and hundreds of other officers along the lines 
of communications, their tact in their relations with our 
French friends, and their capacity for overcoming ob- 
stacles have response in the enthusiasm of their workers. 

Huge bakeries, the gigantic storehouses (one is the 
largest in the world), factories and repair shops are 
filled with workers who are a visible contradiction of the 
allegations as to the alleged slackness of the British 
workman. The jealousy that exists in peace time be- 
tween most Army and civilian establishments does not 
seem to be known. Great soldiers introduced me with 
pride to young men who had no idea two years ago that 
they would enter upon a quasi-military life but have 
adapted themselves with wonderful facility to entirely 
changed conditions. Many have brought with them in- 
valuable knowledge gained in the management of great 
businesses at home and elsewhere. 

It is true, of course, that the workmen in our great 
French factories understand the war better than their 
brothers at home. They are nearer to the war. They 
live in the country invaded by the Hun. They see their 
French fellow-workmen keyed up to the highest pitch in 
tlie intense desire to rid fair France of her despoiler. 
Daily they see reinforcements going to the front and the 
wounded returning home. There is a war atmosphere 
even in towns like Havre and Rouen. The war is al- 



116 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

ways present. One day I saw a great number of cap- 
tured German cannons and other booty of which we 
hear and see so little at home coming down from the 
front. 

The authorities in England seem to hide our German 
prisoners. In France they work, and in public, and are 
content with their lot, as I know by personal enquiry of 
many of them. Save for the letters "P.G." (prisonnier 
de guerre) at the back of their coats it would be difficult 
to realise that comfortable-looking, middle-aged Land- 
sturm Hans, with his long pipe, and young Fritz, with 
his cigarette, were prisoners at all. If it be true that 
there is congestion in the docks at home caused by lack 
of labour, the sooner German prisoners are put to work 
and help to shorten the war the better. 

The war atmosphere and the patriotic keenness of the 
skilled mechanics and labour battalions in France have 
enabled the Commander-in-Giief, Sir Douglas Haig, 
who has personally visited the bases in hurried journeys 
from the front, to accomplish what in peace time would 
be the impossible. Transport alone is a miracle. The 
railways are so encumbered that it is frequent to see 
trains nearly a kilometre (five-eighths of a mile) in 
length. As one travels about in search of information 
mile-long convoys of motor lorries laden with shells or 
food loom quickly towards one from out of the dense 
dust, and it is by this combination of rail and road that 
the almost impossible task has been achieved of keeping 
pace with the German strategic railways, which were 
built for the sole purpose of the quick expedition of men 
and supplies. 

I do not know how many types of motor vehicles are 
being used in France, but I counted more than two score. 
Each of these requires its own spare parts in order that 



THE ARIMY BEHIND THE ARMY 117 

repairs can be speedily effected, and it must always be 
borne in mind that delay in war time is fatal. There are 
in use no fewer than 50,000 different kinds of spare 
parts, including nuts, bolts, rivets, and screws. By 
proper co-operation between the various manufacturers 
these could be reduced to a minimum. 

In order to help economy all spare parts are supplied 
when possible from the salvage of machines of the same 
type. All this debris has to be carefully collected, re- 
paired and arranged in depots in such a manner that 
missing parts can be found instantly. The Germans 
use, comparatively, few types of motor vehicles and 
have, therefore, an advantage over us. 

As' one of the pioneers of automobilisation I should 
like to offer my tribute to all sections of the motor trans- 
port department in France, and especially to the eco- 
nomic manner in which waste has been eliminated. 

Scattered among the Army behind the Army are 
schools where war is taught by officers who have stud- 
ied the art at the front. Here in vast camps the specta- 
tor might easily imagine that he was at the front itself. 
Here the pupils fresh from England or from the United 
States are drilled in every form of fighting. 

There is something uncanny in the approach of a 
company to a communication trench, in its vanishing 
under the earth, and its reappearance some hundreds of 
yards away, where clambering "over the top," to use 
the most poignant expression of the war, the soldier pu- 
pils dash forward in a vociferous bayonet charge. At 
these great reinforcement camps are gas mask attacks, 
where pupils are passed through underground chambers, 
filled with real gas, that they may become familiarized 
with one of the worst curses of warfare. The gas itself 
is a subtle and at first not a very fearsome enemy, but 



118 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

the victim is apt to be overcome before he is aware of it. 

And at these miniature battlefields, all of them larger 
than the field of Waterloo, are demonstration lecturers 
who teach bombing, first with toy bombs that explode 
harmlessly with a slight pufiF, and then with the real 
Mills bombs which have a noisy and destructive effect 
altogether disproportionate to their size and innocent 
appearance. The various types of machine-guns are 
fired at ingenious targets all the day long. There are 
actual dug-outs in which pupils are interned with en- 
trances closed while gas is profusely projected around 
them so that they may learn how to deal with the new 
weapon by spraying it and flapping it away when the 
entrance is uncovered at a given signal. Crater fighting 
is taught with an actual reproduction of a crater, by a 
lusty sergeant who has seen much of the actual thing, 
and tells the men what to do with their bombs and with 
Germans. Such schools are known to exist throughout 
Germany, but no Prussian thoroughness can better these 
British war-training schools in France. For those who 
are not so quick in intelligence as others there is a re- 
vival of the old awkward squad who are taught slowly 
and patiently with remarkable results. 

In the centre of one of these schools there arrived, 
while I was on the scene, a great number of German pris- 
oners on their way to the Base. I do not know how 
many young soldiers just landed from England were 
being trained that day. Certainly many, many thou- 
sands, and I do not wonder that the prisoners were 
amazed at the spectacle before them. One of them 
frankly confessed in excellent English that his comrades 
were under the impression that we had no men left. 

The food supplied to these German prisoners here, as 
every'where, was excellent and tliey did not hesitate to 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 119 

.« 
say so. Temporary baths and other washing arrange- 
ments were fitted up for them, they had an abundance 
of tobacco, and were just as comfortably off in their 
tents as our soldiers not actually in barracks. Their 
condition on arrival here, as elsewhere, was appalling. 
Imprisoned in their trenches by our barrage of fire, they 
had been deprived of many of the necessities of life for 
days, and on their arrival ate ravenously. Most of them 
were Prussian Guards and Bavarians, and the number 
who had the Iron Cross ribbon in their button-holes was 
eloquent testimony to the type of enemy troops our 
New Armies have been fighting. 

If there be loss of time and energy in the Army behind 
the Army it may be found in one of two of the clerical 
establishments, which might be carefully modernised. 
In some of these departments it is said that men of mili- 
tary age are still engaged. If this be so, there is still 
a certain supply of superfluous middle-aged clerical la- 
bour at home that might be gradually introduced. 

There is beyond question a growing demand for the 
filling up of more and more forms in connexion with the 
Army. It is a disease which should be checked now 
before it becomes a hindrance to efficient working. In 
some of the clerical departments the use of modern files 
and indexes does not seem to be general, but this does 
not apply to all departments, for I saw many that were 
quite up-to-date. 

In one great branch is kept a complete record of every 
British soldier, from the hour of his arrival in France 
to his departure, or death. Think of the countless es- 
sential letters, and forms that must necessarily be filled 
up, to achieve that end efficiently and with accuracy. 

Another department, which exists for the satisfaction 
of relatives, and possible decisions in the Court of Pro- 



120 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

bate, keeps an exact record of the time of death and 
place of burial of every officer and private soldier in 
France, whether he comes from the British Islands or 
the Dominions. Such establishments necessarily de- 
mand the use of much clerical labour. 

It should be remembered always, in regard to such a 
department as that which follows the course of every 
soldier in France, that Tommy is a difficult person to 
deal with. It is more than possible that there is a con- 
siderable number of men who have been reported as 
missing or dead who are not missing or dead at all. 
One case was discovered whilst I was at a certain office. 
It was that of a soldier who had been reported missing 
for more than a year but who was found in comfortable 
surroundings doing duty as an Army cook in a totally 
different part of the field from that in which he disap- 
peared. 

There are countless departments of which the public 
knows nothing. I have only space and time to deal with 
one more. It is that which watches over the recovery 
of the effects of dead men and officers. There are sep- 
arate departments for each, but I only saw that affecting 
the men. 

The work begins on the battlefield and in the hospitals, 
where I saw the dead bodies being reverently searched. 
A list is carefully made there and then, and that list ac- 
companies the little familiar belongings which are a part 
of every man's life to one of the great bases on the lines 
of communication. The bag is there opened by two 
clerks, who check it once more, securely fastening it, and 
sending it home, where it eventually reaches the next-of- 
kin. I watched the opening of one such pathetic parcel 
during the final checking. It contained a few pence, a 
pipe, a photo of wife and bairn, a trench ring made of 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 121 

the aluminum of an enemy fuze, a small diary, and a 
pouch. It was all the man had. 

They told me that nearly every soldier carries a sou- 
venir. In one haversack was found a huge piece of 
German shell which had probably been carried for 
months. The relatives at home set great store on these 
treasures, and though the proper officials to address are 
those at the War Office, London, the people in France 
are often in receipt of indignant letters from relatives 
asking why this or that trifle has not been returned. 

One of them which arrived that day said, "I gave 
my son to the war, you have had him, you might at least 
return all his property intact. Where ^are the pair of 
gloves and zinc ointment he had with him?" 

The work of collecting these last mementos of the 
dead is carried out with promptness, care, and very 
kindly feeling, despite the monotony of the task, which 
6egins in the morning and goes on to the evening, a task 
which is increasing daily with the size of the war. 



THE WOMEN ARE SPLENDID 



THE WOMEN ARE SPLENDID ^ 

Woman's part in the war ; not the tender nursing part 
— that was expected by all — ^but the great share she is 
taking in what was once man's work is one of the great 
surprises. 

There is just a note of wounded vanity in the confes- 
sions of thousands of men who have to admit to-day 
that, unknown to themselves, they have been performing 
tasks which are now proved to have been women's work. 
Across the Channel, in France, women have always suc- 
cessfully managed large businesses. There is a large 
number of cases in point: Mme. Pommery, whose 
champagne sparkles around the world; Mme. Duval, 
who organized the popular restaurants that were the 
forerunners of so many in London; Mme. Paquin, who 
succeeded her husband in the great modiste business; 
Mme. Curie, who discovered radium. Women play a 
prominent part in French politics, French business, 
French science, French agriculture, and in French af- 
fairs generally. 

Throughout the English-speaking world we have al- 
ways prided ourselves on sheltering our womenkind. 
We have not, for example, cared to see them working 
in the fields and at the heavier forms of manual labour. 
There has been a great deal of self-deception about it, 
because, after all, women have performed heavy tasks 
in factories for a century or more. And we must not 

*This article was among the first to call attention to the great 
part played by women in the effective waging of war. 

125 



126 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

forget our old friends, the chainmakers of Cradley 
Heath. 

Again, from the days of Florence Nightingale the no- 
ble work of nursing our sick and carrying on the service 
of our hospitals has been to an increasing extent in the 
hands of women. In no field have they displayed a 
higher competence, a more sublime devotion; and few 
indeed are they who have not at some time or other in 
their lives incurred a tremendous debt to the British hos- 
pital nurse. Again, here and there before the war, 
gifted women, such as Elizabeth Fry and Octavia Hill, 
showed the way in social reform among us, and lately 
women have shone in journalism and in municipal work. 

Yet, despite these very striking exceptions, the war 
has already proved that woman had not hitherto been 
given her opportunity in most parts of the Empire. For 
some years her cause was obscured by the hysteria of the 
Suffragettes. To-day it begins to look as though the 
votes-for-women demonstrations were but manifesta- 
tions of her tremendous pent-up energy. 

Women have taken to every kind of war work with 
a rapidity and adaptability that have certainly not been 
shown by all the ruling sex. It has been openly admit- 
ted that in many munition factories women, in their 
eagerness to defeat the enemy, are producing a greater 
output of energy each day than men working in the 
same shops. 

Women have successfully initiated themselves into 
new kinds of war work which had hitherto been re- 
garded as coming only within man's sphere. Some- 
times, however, woman, in the excess of her zeal, is do- 
ing work she ought not to be permitted to do in the 
interest of the race and the nation. Delicately-bred 
women should not be allowed to push tradesmen's heavy 



THE WOMEN ARE SPLENDID 127 

tricycles or undertake the duties of grooms and ostlers. 
But there are still wide fields of opportunity for them 
in most of the indoor and many of the outdoor occupa- 
tions. 

These vocations will remain open in those dim and 
distant days, known as "After the war," when no self- 
respecting male will again be seen matching ribbons be- 
hind counters, typewriting, standing behind aldermanic 
chairs, or playing the piano at kinema theatres. The 
men who have been bomb-throwing will have no appetite 
for the hundred-and-one gentle and essentially feminine 
pursuits by which they have hitherto earned their living. 

Every woman who is releasing a man from his work 
is helping in the war. And — to do them justice — 
women, with their characteristic intuition, saw that fact 
instantly. Every woman so engaged is showing the 
world the real capacity of her sex for many kinds of 
labour, and is also helping the country to progress 
towards a much-desired goal : the more equal distribu- 
tion of money among the people. 

Before the war, in dreary, manless suburbs and pro- 
vincial towns, thousands of nice girls, whose families 
thought it beneath their dignity that they should work, 
preferred the boresome existence of keeping up appear- 
ances on small dress allowances to an active participa- 
tion in daily life. Since the war these young women 
have entered into the battle of industrial work with joy- 
ousness and, though the absence of the best of the land 
in the war zone is unhappily delaying the marriage to 
.which every patriotic woman looks forward, they have 
the great satisfaction of knowing that, whether they be 
women doctors, women dentists, women clerks, women 
ticket collectors, or engaged in any other professions, 
they are helping the great cause of Freedom. 



BEFORE VERDUN 



BEFORE VERDUN * 

THE TRIUMPH OF FRANCE 

Before Verdun, March 4, 1916. 

What is the secret motive underlying the German 
attempt to break the French line at Verdun, in which the 
Crown Prince's Army is incurring such appalling losses? 
Is it financial, in view of the coming war loan? Is it 
dynastic. Or is it intended to influence doubting neu- 
trals? From the evidence of German deserters it is 
known that the attack was originally intended to take 
place a month or two hence, when the ground was dry. 
Premature spring caused the Germans to accelerate their 
plans. There were tv/o final delays owing to bad 
weather, and then came the colossal onslaught of Feb- 
ruary 21. 

The Germans made a good many of the mistakes we 
made at Gallipoli. They announced that something 
large was pending by closing the Swiss frontier. The 
French, who were not ready, were also warned by their 
own astute Intelligence Department. Their avians were 
not idle, and, if confirmation were needed, it was given 
by deserters, who, surmising the horrors that were to 
come, crept out of the trenches at night, lay down by the 
edge of the Meuse till the morning, and then gave them- 
selves up, together with information that has since 

* This telegram (and the others) was, necessarily, written in great 
haste and with the military censorship in view. It appeared in whole 

131 



132 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

proved to be accurate. Things went wrong with the 
Germans in other ways. A Zeppelin that was to have 
blown up important railway junctions on the French 
line of communications was brought down at Revigny, 
and incidentally the inhabitants of what remains of that 
much-bombarded town were avenged by the spectacle of 
the blazing dirigible crashing to the ground and the 
hoisting with their own petard of 30 Huns therein. It 
is not necessary to recapitulate that the gigantic effort 
of February 21 was frustrated by the coolness and 
tenacity of the French soldiers and the deadly curtain 
fire of the French gunners. 

Though a great deal of calculated nonsense has been 
sent out in official communiques and dilated upon by 
dithyrambic Berlin newspaper correspondents as to the 
taken by storm of the long-dismantled Fort at Douau- 
mont, nothing whatever has been admitted by the Ger- 
mans as to the appalling price in blood they have paid 
since February 21 and are still paying. The French 
losses are, and have been, insignificant. I know- the 
official figure. It has been verified by conversations 
with members of the British, French, and American Red 
Cross Societies, who are obviously in a position to know. 
The wounded who pass through their hands have, in 
many cases, come straight from where they have seen 
dead Germans, as has been described by scores of wit- 
nesses, lying as lay the Prussian Guard in the first Battle 
of Ypres. The evidence of one army as to another 
army's losses needs careful corroboration. This exists 
amply in the evidence of many German prisoners inter- 
rogated singly and independently at the French Head- 
quarters. 

and in part in more than three thousand newspapers in many lan- 
guages, at a moment when there was grave anxiety as to the fate 
of Verdun. 



BEFORE VERDUN 133 

The case of one man, belonging to the 3rd Battalion 
of the 1 2th Regiment in the 5th Division of the 3rd. 
Army Corps may be taken as characteristic. On the 
morning of February 28 this prisoner reached the Fort 
of Douaumont and found there one battalion of the 
24th Regiment, elements of the 64th Regiment and of 
the 3rd Battalion of Jager. The strength of his com- 
pany had been, on February 21, 200 rifles with four 
officers. On February 2.2 it had fallen to 70 rifles, with 
one officer. The other companies had suffered similar 
losses. On February 22, the prisoner's company was re- 
inforced by 45 men, bearing the numbers of the 12th, the 
52nd, the 35th, and the 205th Regiments. These men 
had been drawn from various depots in the interior. The 
men of the 12th Regiment believed that five regiments 
were in reserve in the woods behind the 3rd Corps, but, 
as time went on and losses increased without any sign of 
the actual presence of these reserves, doubt spread 
whether they were really in existence. The prisoner de- 
clared that his comrades were no longer capable of fresh 
effort. 

None of the prisoners questioned estimated the losses 
suffered by their companies at less than one-third of 
the total effectives. Taking into account all available in- 
dications, it may safely be assumed that, during the fight- 
ing of the last 13 days, the Germans have lost in killed, 
wounded, and prisoners at least 100,000 men. 

The profits — as the soldier speaks of such matters — 
being so small, what then are the overwhelming motives 
that impel the attack on Verdun, and the chicanery of 
the German communiques? Is it for any of the reasons 
I have given above, or is it an effect of economic pres- 
sure which leads to the miscalculation that the possible 
taking over of the French line at Verdun is a means of 



134 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

ending the war? The Germans are so wont to misread 
the minds of other nations that they are quite foolish 
enough to make themselves believe this or any other fool- 
ish thing. It cannot be pretended that the attack has in 
it anything of military necessity. It was urged forward 
at a time of year when weather conditions might prove, 
as they have proved, a serious handicap in such matters 
as the moving of big guns and the essential observation 
by aeroplanes. 

The district of Verdun lies in one of the coldest and 
also the most misty sectors in the long line between Nieu- 
port and Switzerland. Changes of temperature, too, 
are somewhat more frequent here than elsewhere ; and so 
sudden are these changes that not long ago here occurred, 
on a part of the front, one of nature's furious and ro- 
mantic reminders of her power to impose her will. The 
opposing French and German trenches, their parapets 
hard frozen, are so close that they are actually within 
hearing of each other. Towards dawn a rapid thaw set 
in. The parapets melted and subsided, and two long 
lines of men stood up naked, as it were, before each 
other, face to face with only two possibilities — whole- 
sale murder on the one side or the other, or a temporary 
unofficial peace for the making of fresh parapet protec- 
tions. 

The situation was astounding and unique in the his- 
tory of trench warfare. The French and German offi- 
cers, without conferring and unwilling to negotiate, 
turned their backs so that they might not see officially so 
unwarlike a scene, and the men on each side rebuilt their 
parapets without the firing of a single shot. 

This instance serves to illustrate the precarious 
weather in which the Germans have undertaken an ad- 
venture in the quick success of which the elements play 



BEFORE VERDUN 135 

such a part. That the attack would certainly prove 
more costly to them than to the French the German Staff 
must have known. That the sufferings of the wounded 
lying out through the long nights of icy wind in the No- 
Man's Land between the lines would be great did not 
probably disturb the Crown Prince. It is one of the 
most gruesome facts in the history of the War that the 
French, peering through the moonlight at what they 
thought to be stealthily crawling Germans, found them 
to be wounded men frozen to death. 

During the war, in France and in Flanders, in camps 
and in hospitals, I have conversed with at least lOO Ger- 
mans. Prisoners' talk is always to be accepted with 
great reserve, but the prisoners of the Verdun campaign 
have so plainly horror and misery depicted upon their 
countenances that I need no other evidence as to the 
tragedy through which they have passed. 

The vast battle of Verdun might have been arranged 
for the benefit of interested spectators, were it not that 
the whole zone for miles around the great scene is as 
tightly closed to the outer world as a lodge of Free- 
masons. Furnished with every possible kind of pass, 
accompanied by a member of the French Headquarters 
Staff in a military car driven by a chauffeur whose steel 
helmet marked him as a soldier, I was nevertheless held 
up by intractable gendarmes. My colleague (Mr. Wick- 
ham Steed ^) the chief of the foreign department of 
The Times, who assisted me in the many inquiries I was 

^ Mr. Steed speaks French, German and Italian as a native, knows 
other languages sufficiently for intercourse, and does not object to 
the voyaging vagaries of his friend, the writer of the fragments 
that make up this book. During our Italian, Swiss, Spanish and 
French rush in the autumn, in most part of which he was with me, 
he tells me that our sleep average was three and a half hours in each 
twenty-four. — N. 



136 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

presently allowed to make in and about the battlefield, 
was detained with me at a point twenty-five miles away 
from the great scene. Even at that distance the mourn- 
ful and unceasing reverberation of the guns was insis- 
tent, and, as the sentry examined our papers and waited 
for telephonic instructions, I counted more than 200 of 
the distant voices of Kultur. 

As one gets nearer and nearer the great arena on 
which the whole world's eyes are turned to-day, proofs 
of French efficiency and French thoroughness are count- 
less. I do not pretend to any military knowledge other 
than a few scraps gathered in some half-dozen visits to 
the War, but the abundance of reserve shells for guns, 
from mighty howitzers to the graceful French mitrail- 
leuse of the aeroplane, of rifle ammunition, of petrol 
stores, and of motor-wagons of every description, was 
remarkable. I can truly say that the volume exceeded 
anything in my previous experience. 

As one approaches the battle the volume of sound 
becomes louder and at times terrific. And it is curious, 
the mingling of peace with war. The chocolate and the 
pneumatic tyre advertisements on the village walls, the 
kilometre stone with its ten kilometres to Verdun, a vil- 
lage cure peacefully strolling along the village street, 
just as though it were March, 1914, and his congregation 
had not been sent away from the war zone, while their 
houses were filled by a swarming army of men in pale 
blue. Such a wonderful blue this new French invisible 
cloth ! A squadron of cavalry in the new blue and their 
steel helmets passes at the moment, and gives the im- 
pression that one is back again in what were known as 
the romantic days of war. 

When one has arrived at the battlefield, there are a 
dozen vantage points from which with glasses, or, indeed, 



BEFORE VERDUN 137 

with the naked eye, one can take in much that has hap- 
pened. Verdun lies in a great basin with the silvery 
Meuse twining in the valley. The scene, is on the 
whole, Scottish. Verdun, from where I saw it, might 
be Perth, and the Meuse the Tay. Small groups of firs 
darken some of the hills, giving a natural resemblance 
to Scotland. 

The town is being made into a second Ypres by the 
Germans. Yet, as it stands out in the sunlight, it is 
difficult to realise that it is a place whose people have 
all gone, save a few of the faithful who live below 
ground. (Ypres looked like that the first time I saw 
it soon after the war began.) The tall tower of Ver- 
dun still stands. Close by us is a hidden French bat- 
tery, and it is pretty to see the promptitude with which 
it sends its screaming shells back to the Germans within 
a few seconds of the despatch of a missive from the 
Huns. One speedily grows accustomed to the sound 
and the scene, and can follow the position of the villages 
about which the Germans endeavour to mislead the world 
by wireless every morning. 

We journey farther afield, and the famous fort of 
Douaumont is pointed out. The storming of Fort 
Douaumont as related by the German despatches is on a 
par with the sinking of the Tiger and the recent air 
bombardment of Liverpool. All the world knows that 
the Tiger is, as she was before the Germans sank her in 
their newspapers, one of the finest ships in the world, and 
that the air bombardment of Liverpool was imagined in 
Berlin. The storming of Fort Douaumont, gunless and 
unmanned, was about as important, a military operation 
of little value. A number of the Brandenburgers 
climbed into the gunless fort, and some of them are 
still there, supplied precariously with food by their com- 



138 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

rades at night. They are practically surrounded by the 
French, whose Headquarters Staff regard the whole in- 
cident as a simple episode in the give-and-take of war. 
The announcement of the fall of Fort Douaumont to the 
world evinces the great anxiety of the Germans to mag- 
nify anything concerning Verdun into a great event. 
It should also cause people to apply a grain of salt to 
German offical commimiqiies before swallowing them. 

These modern battles have now been described so fre- 
quently that there is little new to be written of them. 
Of the conflict at Verdun it can be said that on a fine day 
and out of sight of the horrors of the hand-to-hand en- 
counters its surroundings make it a beautiful battle. 
There is rather more bird life in this part of France 
than in some others, and we noticed with particular in- 
terest the spirit and the cheerful song of a lark as it 
climbed skywards hard by the spot where a French "75" 
was splitting the ears with its snap and scream. 

As night falls we come across our first convoy of the 
great hooded motor lorries, which my companion 
counted by the thousand while we*e were on our way 
between Paris and the Meuse. The War has reduced 
motor transport to a science, and in no way is French 
efficiency better demonstrated than in the manner in 
which they have added to the carrying capacity of their 
railways and great canals. They have utilised thou- 
sands of miles of poplar and lime-lined roads for me- 
chanical transport at 15 miles an hour. On one road 
alone we counted 20 motor convoys, each composed of 
about a hundred wagons, and each group indicated by 
some simple mark, such as a four-leaved shamrock, an 
ace of hearts, or a comet. 

Who are the men who are organising the great bat- 
tle for the French side? Let me at once say that they 



BEFORE VERDUN 139 

are young men. General Petain, one of the discoveries 
of the war, till lately colonel (and since this date pro- 
moted to chief command), is still in his late fifties; 
most of the members of his staff are much younger. 
One hears of luxury at Headquarters, but I have not 
experienced it, either at our own Headquarters or at the 
French. General Petain, when I enjoyed his hospitality 
at luncheon, drank tea. Most of his young men con- 
tented themselves with water, or the white wine of the 
Meuse. 

In the brief meal he allowed himself the General dis- 
cussed the battle as though he were merely an interested 
spectator. In appearance he resembles Lord Roberts, 
though he is of larger build. In accordance with the 
drastic changes that the French, like the Germans, are 
making in their Command, his rise has been so rapid 
that he is little known to the French people, though 
greatly trusted by General Joffre and the Government. I 
naturally did not ask his opinion on any matters con- 
nected with the War. We discussed the Australians, the 
Canadians, the great growth of the British Army, and 
kindred matters. 

At another gathering of officers some one asked 
whether the French would not expect the British to 
draw off the Germans by making an attack in the West. 
"It is questionable," replied one young officer, "whether 
such an attack would not involve disproportionate losses 
that would weaken the Allies." The same officer 
pointed out that, although the capture of Verdun would 
cause great regret, owing to the historic name it bears, it 
would not, for many reasons, be more important than 
the pressing back of any other similar number of miles 
on the front. Forts being of little account since the 
introduction of the big German hammers, he believed 



140 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

that General Sarrail had said that the question was not 
one merely of dismantling the forts, but of blowing 
them up. As it is, whenever the Germans capture a 
piece of land where an old fort happens to be, they will 
use it as an advertisement. But though the French offi- 
cers are not looking to us, so far as I could learn, for 
active co-operation now, they are most certainly urging 
that when our new armies and their officers are trained 
we shall aid them by bearing our full share of the tre- 
mendous military burden they are carrying. 

The present attack on the French at Verdun is by far 
the most violent incident of the whole Western War. 
As I write it is late. Yet the bombardment is continu- 
ing, and the massed guns of the Germans are of greater 
calibre than has ever been used in such numbers. The 
superb calm of the French people, the efficiency of their 
organisation, the equipment of their cheery soldiery, 
convince one that the men in the German machine would 
never be able to compare with them even if France had 
not the help of Russia, the five British nations, Belgium, 
Serbia, Italy and Japan (now she has the help of the 
United States also). It is unsafe to prophesy about war, 
as it is to prophesy about any other human affair, 
but this prediction one can make, and with certainty: 
that, whatever may be the result of the attack on the 
Verdun sector, every such effort will result in adding 
many more thousands of corpses to those now lying in 
the valley of the Meuse, the numbers of which are being 
so carefully concealed from the neutral world and the 
Germans themselves; and could neutrals see the kind 
of men whom the Germans do not scruple to use as sol- 
diers their faith in Teutonic physical efficiency would re- 
ceive a shock. 

Unluckily a pygmy behind a machine-gun is the equal 



BEFORE VERDUN 141 

of a giant. "What a pity your Highlanders cannot meet 
these fellows in fair fight," said a French officer, as we 
reviewed a gang of prisoners. "The war would be over 
in a month." Personal contact with the miserable crea- 
tures who form the bulk of the German prisoners here 
is needed to convince an observer that such specimens of 
humanity can really have belonged to the German Army, 
and especially to a corps d' elite such as the 3rd, or Ber- 
lin, Army Corps. One ill-favoured youth hailing from 
Charlottenburg was barely 5 ft. 4in. high. Narrow- 
chested and peak- faced, he had the quick-wittedness of 
the urban recruit, but seemed far better fitted for his 
stool as a railway clerk than for the life of the trenches 
or for the ordeal of attack. Yet he had been taken at 
the end of 19 14 and sent to Flanders after six weeks' 
training, "educated" in trench-making for another 
month, then left to fend for himself and his comrades as 
a full-fledged Prussian eaglet. Like the bulk of the 
other prisoners belonging to other units, he had been 
withdrawn at the beginning of February from the Flan- 
ders front and sent to the neighbourhood of Verdun. 
He had known that there was to be an attack, but until 
the order was actually given neither he nor his comrades 
had received any hint of the precise purpose of the opera- 
tion in which he was to be employed. 

Of one thing he and his fellows were heartily glad — 
to be taken away from the neighbourhood of the 
"frightful" English and nearer to the kindly French. 
From all the reports which these men had received from 
their families during the last two months it appears that, 
in the words of one of them, "there reigns in Germany 
considerable misery." All agreed that butter is unob- 
tainable, meat scarce (except in Alsace and parts of 
Pomerania), fat almost unknown. In most respects the 



U2 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

food of the Army was tolerable, though not good or 
abundant. All declared that enthusiasm for the war 
had long since evaporated, though, as two of the more 
intelligent among them maintained, the German Army- 
does not expect to be beaten, even if it no longer hopes 
to win. The chief longing of these men, as of their 
families, was for peace. 

The only good thing about these prisoners was their 
foot-gear. Their stout Bliicher boots were an object- 
lesson in the necessity of tightening certain features of 
our blockade and of adding a shortage of leather to the 
other deficiencies of the military and civil supply that 
are wearing down the German power of resistance. 



LIFE IN REIMS 



LIFE IN REIMS 

THE SIGN THAT WILL BE KEPT FOREVER 

Reims. 

As our motor sped toward the stricken town this 
sunny afternoon, and we got our first view of the two 
towers of the great church, we rejoiced not a httle that 
at a distance of a mile, all looked as it did before the 
Germans came, and when we reached Reims itself there 
were not, at that particular entrance gate, many signs 
of change. We were glad to be away from war for a 
while and to see women and children. For hours sol- 
diers clad in horizon blue, with their paler blue helmets, 
had been our only companions. Mighty motor-lorries„ 
vast collections of forage wagons, travelling kitchens, 
automobile searchlights, and the rest of the apparatus of 
war had blocked the roads for many leagues. In the 
city itself, except for shut shops as on Sunday, and a 
look of desolation, our first impressions were that the 
story of Reims had been exaggerated. 

But suddenly, on our way to the cathedral, in the 
Boulevard de la Paix, strangely named, there were 
whole mansions down and others so mutilated that they 
exposed the long-kept privacy of chandeliered salons, 
bedrooms now wrecked, and hanging staircases. It was 
in the little square in front of the cathedral that we 
found Kultur displayed in its horrid nakedness. The 

145 



146 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

Archbisop's palace looks like a house in Pompeii, the 
cathedral's face, partly sandbagged, is ruined. 

Perhaps my readers have known and loved Reims, and 
can recall the scene at the great west entrance. There 
is a humble little equestrian figure of Jeanne d'Arc, car- 
rying now in her hand a French flag and decorated 
around the plinth with many tributes from passing sol- 
diery, who have paused to note the marvel of the fact 
that her sanctity has not been disturbed by even one shell 
fragment. To the right of this little figure of Joan the 
Maid and facing the cathedral is the Hotel of the Lion 
d'Or, the front damaged but the house itself, though 
within a child's stonethrow of the cathedral, hardly 
hurt. To-day the hotel, reminiscent of the happy holi- 
days of thousands of English and American tourists, 
bears itself bravely. There were even a few dafifodils 
in the salle a manger, and there is a comfortable dug-out 
below stairs. There was exactly one foreign visitor 
who shared with us the excellent meal provided — Mr. 
Frank Hedges Butler, a well-known friend of France 
and one of the pioneers of the automobile. Here at 
Reims, with the Huns almost within rifle shot, and in 
places even more closely adjoining the firing line, the 
French provide wonderful meals. 

I was asked to perform one little act of justice in con- 
nexion with the hotel. It is held by Mme. Pfister. Her 
foreign-looking name gave rise to ridiculous rumours 
that from the hotel signals were sent to the Hun artil- 
lery whereby the hotel was spared and the cathedral 
shelled. Mme. Pfister is French and her son is in the 
trenches. When the golden tide of English and Ameri- 
can tourists returns every franc will be needed to pay 
for the devastation sustained, and no unjust slur should 
deprive this hotel of even one possible patron. 



LIFE IN REIMS 147 

Reims Is bombarded with persistent regularity. Its 
stricken folk are subject to attacks vastly more serious 
than any Zeppelin raid, and so often that the French 
communiques have ceased to report them. The world 
outcry has saved the remains of the cathedral. 

Let us take a little turn in the town while the guard- 
ian of the locked church is fetched. We find that quite 
a number of people of all classes remain. The old men 
and women that one associates with war are seated in the 
doorways of such houses as are not closed or in ruins, 
children play in the streets their shrill and merry games, 
a funeral passes with its little procession following. 
Here and there whole streets are closed, while in others 
a superficial observer would imagine that life in Reims 
was going on as usual. Judging by the wall advertise- 
ments, there seem to be some amusements, such as kine- 
matographs. There is no lack of excellent food in the 
shops that are open. The people seem quite undisturbed 
by the continual murmur of cannon, and indeed after a 
few minutes one is oblivious of it. 

Reims is a queer but quite an attractive melange, diffi- 
cult to describe. Almost every one carries a gas mask; 
the men keep theirs in compact tin cases slung from the 
wrist or attached to bicycle handle, the women in vari- 
ous kinds of bags. These masks can be bought at any 
chemist's and are so prepared as to need merely damping 
with water when required. The preponderance of the 
remaining native population is, of course, feminine, 
mostly workgirls who work in the great champagne 
caves, and in this matter I am asked to state that the 
war vintage of 19 15 is believed to be the best since 1900. 
Here, deep down underground, thousands of women are 
busy filling and turning the acres of bottles that are ar- 
ranged in the wonderful subterranean highways. 



148 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

We obtained permission to descend into the famous 
Pommery cellars, which are laid out in what are really 
streets of wine, the whole forming an underground city 
of considerable extent. Millions of bottles are twisted 
by a dexterous movement of the hand each day. The 
process of preparing the champagne which will one day 
sparkle on distant tables wherever there is merriment 
is so complicated that the relatively high cost of this wine 
can be easily understood. 

We have not time to tarry in the deep chalk streets 
of wine, many of which are named after American and 
English cities, such as Manchester-street, Liverpool- 
street, New York-street, and the rest, for Notre Dame 
is our aim. We have made a long journey to see it, and 
we are unfortunate to have found its guardian away. 
When we emerge to the surface and to sunlight and the 
sound of guns, we hasten to the cathedral so as to be 
there at the appointed moment, when what remains of 
the great window will be at its best in the setting sun. 
We are amused, en passant, by a glimpse of a real Pari- 
sian elegante, with the extremely high hat of the moment, 
the wide skirt, and the showy boots, carrying in her right 
hand her Pekinese and in her left her gas mask, looking 
as though she had just walked in from the Avenue du 
Bois. A truly remarkable sex! 

The people of Reims keep the shell of the cathedral 
strictly closed, as though to hide its humiliation from 
such few soldier travellers in the war zone as have time 
to pause a moment in their urgent and bloody business. 
First, after glancing at the ruined fagade, whose graven 
figures were considered one of the masterpieces of their 
period, we pondered some minutes in the remains of 
the Archbishop's palace. We had known it in happier 
days. The beautiful Salle du Tau, where the corona- 



LIFE IN REIMS 149 

tion banquets were held, had a wonderful fifteenth-cen- 
tury chimney, but nothing remains to-day of the Arch- 
bishop's palace but wreckage and blackened and ruined 
walls. Modem artillery is mathematically accurate. 
For some fiendish reason the palace had been especially 
chosen as an objective. It is a building of only two 
storeys, so low as to be of no possible value as an obser- 
vation post. The guardian told us that over a thousand 
shells fell therein. 

We passed by a little door into the great church, whose 
doors had been continuously open since the rebuilding 
in 1 48 1, and whose walls had contained so much magnifii- 
cence in the past. Generations of affectionate guardians 
have seen to it that the coronation place of kings was 
swept and garnished each day. Now, save for the wild 
pigeons who are taking up their residence and whose 
peaceful cooing mingles strangely with the distant boom- 
ing of German guns, it is bereft of life. The warm scent 
of incense is gone. The whole vast space of the cathe- 
dral which looks so much bigger than it did before so 
much of the internal woodwork was burned, is desola- 
tion itself. An attempt had been made at a tidying up, 
and the little, old guardian who shows us the ruins, in- 
dicating the obvious deliberation with which various 
parts of the cathedral have been shelled, tells us that very 
soon all will be restored and well. He has the absolute 
confidence of practically every Frenchman we met that 
the barbarians will soon leave France. He tells us with 
delight that the famous tapestries, which will be remem- 
bered by all, were taken away at the first news of the 
invasion of the Huns and are safe, as is also, we found 
afterwards, the beautiful Church of St. Remi. 

Many people ask about the glass of Reims and what 
has happened to it. Much of it is gone. A great deal 



150 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

of it is passing over the world in fragments as souvenirs. 
Set in the aluminum rings made in the trenches from 
German fuzes, the blue glass is difficult to distinguish 
from sapphire. 

As the moment came for saying farewell to Notre 
Dame the great rose window over the main portal il- 
lumined the whole church. Partly because half of it is 
destroyed, the light came in strongly, and as the sun 
sank a fierce gleam lit up a horrible discoloration on the 
stone pavement. "That," said our guide with much 
feeling, "is the burnt blood of the wounded Germans 
who had sought refuge in the cathedral and who were 
done to death by their own incendiary shells. That sign 
we shall keep forever as a warning to the world of the 
danger of Hun ferocity." 



WITH THE ITALIANS 



WITH THE ITALIANS 

Of the ferocious fighting on the ItaHan front little 
is understood in England. If the figures of the wounded 
carried by the British Red Cross ambulances alone could 
be published, they would, perhaps, open the eyes of the 
public. Let me select one battle scene, the birdless, 
waterless Carso. It is certainly the thirstiest battlefield 
this side of Suez. It can only be compared to a gigantic 
Shap fell or Devonshire tor. It is not unlike the Arizona 
desert without the alkali. 

As another battlefield, look at the Calvaria position, 
on the Podgora hill outside Gorizia on the west bank of 
the Isonzo river. Take the steepest wooded hillside you 
know; put the Austrians, deeply and cunningly en- 
trenched, on the top; and realise that the capture of that 
one hill has cost Italy 15 months' bloodshed. The price 
was great, though the thousand deeds of heroism which 
resulted in the sudden flight of the Austrians should thrill 
generations of Italians yet unborn. 

These are but two of the battlefields of Italy which 
are barely known to the outside world. They deserve 
to be known. 

We toiled one day under a burning sun along miles 
of the rugged Carso — the harsh German name "Karst" 
seems apter for this inhospitable, rock-strewn plateau, 
where lizards alone find life bearable — past where a week 
before had been Italian-Austrian first line positions. In 
one night the Italian engineers had hammered and hewn 
across the bare limestone a tolerable road which next 

153 



154 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

day would be smooth enough for motor vehicles. Warm 
food — the excellent Italian minestrone, a thick soup com- 
posed of meat, vegetables, rice, and macaroni — was being 
brought up on mule back to the danger zone and carried 
thence by hand to the firing line. 

One gruesome sight in the former No Man's Land 
between the first positions bore witness to the character 
of the climate. We came upon the remains of a human 
body in a kneeling posture absolutely mummified by the 
scorching heat amid the brambles, thistles, wild roses, 
and scraggy mountain ash, which form the only vegeta- 
tion in this desolate region. While collecting battle sou- 
venirs for a boy friend at home I discovered that, dur- 
ing the hot hours of the day, metal objects can only be 
handled with difficulty. 

A strange feature of the Carso are the deep, crater- 
like depressions called doline, filled with dark brown, 
peaty earth, every one of which forms a natural fort. 
The Austrian troops fortify them and build officers' 
shelters in their sides. One such group of shelters had 
been devastated by the Italian bombardment. The occu- 
pants had fled, abandoning vast quantities of ammuni- 
tion, entrenching tools, whole cases marked "explosive 
cartridges," piles of rockets, a rich assortment of hand- 
grenades, lengths of water hose, rolls of wire, and other 
paraphernalia of this uncanny war. A pestilential odour 
proved that not all the inhabitants of these barbaric ex- 
cavations had fled. Letters and relics also showed that 
ladies from Budapest had been not Infrequent visitors. 

Owing to the fact that so many Italian and Austrian 
soldiers have worked in the United States and Canada, 
it often happens that English is the only language in 
which they can mutually converse. One day I saw a 
small band of prisoners being brought in by Bersaglieri, 



WITH THE ITALIANS 155 

who answered my remarks upon the stout physical ap- 
pearance of the prisoners by saying in good New York 
dialect, "They can holler all right, Mister," at which the 
prisoners grinned with evident understanding. 

On a Sunday afternoon I witnessed on the Izonzo front 
a prolonged bombardment, at a distance of 5,500 yards, 
of a rocky cavern in which an Austrian battery of moun- 
tain guns and a number of machine-guns were known 
to be concealed. Hour after hour 8 in. Howitzers planted 
their shells within a few yards of the same spot. It was 
bright and clear, and through a powerful telescope we 
could pick out every individual pine tree in the neigh- 
bourhood of the cavern, and see great rock splinters being 
thrown in all directions at the moment of the explosion 
of the shell. 

Next morning I was writing in brilliant sunshine and 
several degrees of frost on the Cadore front. It is not 
usually realised that the Italian front is nearly 500 miles 
long. In the parched, stony wilderness of the Carso, 
which I have already described, the chief enemy of the 
fighting man is thirst. The chief enemy on the Cadore 
front is frost. These two facts should bring home some 
of the difficulties that the Italians have faced for 29 
months. 

In discussing the peculiarities of the mountain fight- 
ing as contrasted with the fighting on the road to Tri- 
este, his Majesty the King of Italy, who has a fine sense 
of words, and who has spoken English from childhood, 
said : — "Picture to yourself my men 9,000 ft. up in the 
clouds for seven months, in deep snow, so close to the 
Austrians that at some points the men can see their ene- 
mies' eyes through the observation holes. Imagine the 
difficulties of such a life with continual sniping and bomb- 
throwing." 



156 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

King Victor Emmanuel's grim picture of war was in 
such strong contrast to the tropical fighting I had seen 
that I asked General Cadorna for permission to come 
and see the fighting in the clouds. The illustrated news- 
papers have from time to time published photographs of 
great cannon carried up into these Dolomite Alps, but I 
confess to having never realised what it meant. It 
had never occurred to me to imagine what happens to 
the wounded men, or to the dead. How do supplies and 
ammunition reach these lonely sentinels of our Allies? 

I have watched great steamers arrive at our British 
bases in France — the transport of their freight by train 
and the wonderful motor service, and then on by light 
railways or horse vehicles. Here food for the men and 
food for the guns go first by giddy, zigzag roads, specially 
built by the Italians for this war. They are not mere 
tracks, but are as wide as the Grand Corniche that runs 
between Nice and Mentone. When these have reached 
their utmost possible height there comes a whole series ot 
"wire ways," as the Italian soldiers call them. Steel 
cables slung from hill to hill, from ridge to ridge, span 
yawning depths and reach almost vertically into the 
clouds. Up these cables go guns and food, as well as 
timber for the huts, in which the men live ; and material 
for entrenchments. Down these come the wounded. The 
first sensation of a transit down these seemingly fragile 
tight-ropes is much more curious than the first trip in a 
submarine or aeroplane, and tries even the strongest 
nerves. 

Man is not only fighting man at these heights, but 
both Italians and Austrians have been fighting Nature 
in some of her fiercest aspects. The gales and snow- 
storms are excelled in horror by avalanches. Quite 
lately the melting snow revealed the frozen bodies, look- 



WITH THE ITALIANS 157 

ing horribly lifelike, of a whole platoon which had been 
swept away nearly a year ago. 

While there have been heavy casualties on both sides 
from sniping, bombing, mountain- and machine-guns, and 
heavy artillery, there has been little sickness among the 
Italians. The men know that doctors' visits are practi- 
cally impossible. Therefore they follow the advice of 
their officers. King Victor Emmanuel, whose life has 
been passed almost entirely among the troops since the 
beginning of the war, told me, however, that despite the 
greatest care, occasional casualties from frost-bite are 
impossible to avoid. Yet the men have all the comforts 
that it is humanly possible to obtain. The cloud fighters 
are extremely well fed. Huts are provided, fitted with 
stoves similar to those used in Arctic expeditions. 

I do not know how many kinds of artillery are used 
in these Alps. In addition to heavy gims there are guns 
carried on mules and guns partly carried by mountain 
artillerymen — huge fellows whose weight-carrying ca- 
pacity entirely puts into the shade that of the Constan- 
tinople hamels, or porters. When Queen Margherita ar- 
rived at Gressoney some years ago, four Alpine gunners 
presented arms with the guns of a battery. They are 
cheery fellows, not a little proud of their strength, and 
with backs like bulls. 

Higher yet than the mountain fighting line stand the 
vedettes, sentinels and outposts whose work resembles 
that of expert Alpine climbers. They carry portable tele- 
phones, with which they can communicate with their pla- 
toon. The platoon in turn telephones to the local com- 
mander. When thinking of our own brave men who 
have held the trenches in French Flanders for these two 
years and who now, with Dominion and Oversea troops, 
are alongside the French slowly forcing back the Ger- 



158 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

mans in Flanders, it is only fair that we should realise 
that, but for the work of these Italians in weakening 
Germany's chief ally in the mountains, on the lower 
ground near Gorizia, in Gorizia itself, and in the Carso 
desert, our advance would not have been possible. 

General Cadorna is intensely grateful to the heroes 
fallen in the strange, deadly guerilla warfare on the 
mountain peaks. I saw one gallant young officer with 
three medals for valour. In one division alone 40 such 
medals were recently distributed — a sure sign how Gen- 
eral Cadorna, who is no sentimentalist, appreciates the 
gallantry of these fighters among the precipices and ava- 
lanches. 

On reaching the headquarters of this division at dawn 
I found a batch of prisoners captured in a midnight 
battle near a Dolomite summit drawn up in line. In 
contradistinction to the prisoners taken in the Plain 
battle, they were ragged and unkempt tramps. The only 
decent things about them were their boots, rifles, and the 
stout mountain staff which each carried. The captors, 
with soldierly generosity, had shared their own soup with 
them — food such as, the prisoners said, they had not 
tasted for six months. One had a lump of Austrian mili- 
tary bread. Dark coloured — not the healthy colour of 
rye bread — hard to chew, sodden to touch, evil of smell, 
it seems barely possible that it can sustain the strength 
of human beings in the coming terrible winter conditions 
of this mountain warfare. 

As the sun rose the great peaks of the Dolomites stood 
out like pink pearls, set here and there in a soft white 
vapour. Coming through a Canadian-looking pine for- 
est, with log-house barracks, kitchens, and canteens be- 
neath one such peak, I was reminded of Dante's lines : — 
"Gazing above, I saw her shoulders clothed already with 



WITH THE ITALIANS 159 

the planet's rays." But poetic memories soon faded be- 
fore a sniper's bullet from a very near Austrian outlook. 

At one spot the Austrian and Italian barbed wire en- 
tanglements were clearly visible through glasses on a 
neighbouring summit at a height of over 10,000 feet. A 
few yards below in an open cavern protected by an over- 
hanging rock the little grey tents of Italy's soldiers were 
plainly seen. 

The Italians have driven back the Austrians foot by 
foot up the almost vertical Dolomite rock with mountain, 
field, and heavy guns, and especially in hand-to-hand and 
bomb fighting. Sniping never ceases by day, but the 
actual battles are almost invariably fought by night. 

The only day fighting is when, as in the famous cap- 
ture of Col di Lana and more recently at Castelletto, 
the whole or part of a mountain top has to be blown off, 
because it is impossible to turn or carry it by direct as- 
sault. Tunnels, sometimes 800 yards long, are drilled 
by machinery through the solid rock beneath the Aus- 
trian strongholds, which presently disappear under the 
smashing influence of 30 or 40 tons of dynamite. Then 
the Alpini swarm over the debris and capture or kill the 
enemy survivors and rejoice in a well-earned triumph. 

One needs to have scaled a mountain side to an Italian 
gun emplacement or look-out post to gauge fully the na- 
ture of this warfare. Imagine a catacomb, hewn through 
the hard rock, with a central hall and galleries leading 
to a gun position 7,000 feet up. Reckon that each gun 
emplacement represents three months' constant labour 
with drill, hammer, and mine. Every requirement, as 
well as food and water, must be carried up by men at 
night or under fire by day. Every soldier employed at 
these heights needs another soldier to bring him food and 
drink, unless, as happens in some places, the devoted wives 



160 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

of the Alpini act nightly under organised rules as porters 
for their husbands. 

The food supply is most efficiently organised. A young 
London Italian private, speaking English perfectly, whom 
I met by chance, told me, and I have since verified the 
information, that the men holding this long line of the 
Alps received special food, particularly during the seven 
months' winter. Besides the excellent soup which forms 
the staple diet of the Italian as of the French soldiers, 
the men receive a daily ration of two pounds of bread, 
half a pound of meat, half a pint of red wine, macaroni 
of various kinds, rice, cheese, dried and fresh fruit, choco- 
late, and, thrice weekly, small quantities of Cognac and 
Marsala. 

Members of the Alpine Club know that in the high 
Dolomites water is in summer often as precious as on 
the Carso. Snow serves this purpose in winter. Three 
months' reserve supplies of oil fuel, food, alcohol, and 
medicine must be stored in the catacomb mountain posi- 
tions, lest, as happened to an officer whom I met, the gar- 
risons should be cut off by snow for weeks and months 
at a time. 

The experience of the Italian front brings into prom- 
inence one little understood aspect of the Italian charac- 
ter — its patience, and its industry as of ants. Pasienza 
is one of the commonest Italian words. Here it is ex- 
emplified both by faith and works. 



SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 



SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 

A GREAT MAN THROWN UP BY THE WAR 

When history relates the story of the great battles 
of the Somme, it will tell how Sir Douglas Haig and 
his Staff had their Headquarters in a modest dwelling, 
part of which was still occupied by the family who owned 
it. 

Thus it is that the voices of children running up and 
down the corridors mingle with the ceaseless murmur of 
the guns and the work of the earnest little company of 
men whose labours are never out of the thoughts of their 
countrymen throughout the Empire. 

The head of this band of brothers, the Commander- 
in-Chief of an Army ten times larger than that of the 
great Duke, is Sir Douglas Haig, well known to his troops 
from the base to the front, though hardly known at all 
to the masses of his fellow-subjects at home. 

In these days of instant communication by telephone, 
despatch rider, telegraph, or wireless, a greater part of 
the life of the Commander-in-Chief is spent at his Head- 
quarter offices. In times of stress he rarely moves from 
them. Outwardly the life of Sir Douglas Haig might 
seem to be that of some great Scotch laird who chooses 
to direct his estates himself. 

At exactly five and twenty minutes past eight each 
morning Sir Douglas joins his immediate Staff at the 
usual informal breakfast of English life. Though he has 

163 



164 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

selected his Staff, without fear or favour, from the best 
elements of the British Armies that have been tried for 
two years in the field, there is something indefinably Scot- 
tish in the atmosphere of his table. The Commander-in- 
Chief is of an ancient Scottish family born in the king- 
dom of Fife, so that the spear of our British offensive 
is tipped with that which is considered to be more ada- 
mant than the granite of Aberdeen. Lithe and alert. Sir 
Douglas is known for his distinguished bearing and good 
looks. He has blue eyes and an unusual facial angle, 
delicately-chiselled features, and a chin to be reckoned 
with. There is a characteristic movement of the hands 
when explaining things. 

Sir Douglas does not waste words. It is not because 
he is silent or unsympathetic — it is because he uses words 
as he uses soldiers, sparingly, but always with method. 
When he is interested in his subject, as in talking of his 
gratitude to and admiration of the new armies and their 
officers, or in testifying to the stubborn bravery of the 
German machine-gunners, it is not difficult to discern 
from his accent that he is what is known North of the 
Tweed as a Fifer. A Fifer is one of the many types that 
have helped to build up the Empire, and is probably the 
best of all for dealing with the Prussian. First of all in 
the armoury of the Fifer is patience, then comes oblivion 
to all external surroundings and pressure, with a supreme 
concentration on the object to be attained. Fifeshire is 
the home of the national game of Scotland ; and it is the 
imperturbability of the Fifer that makes him so difficult 
to beat in golf, in affairs, and in war. Behind the dour- 
ness of the man of the East Coast is the splendid enthu- 
siasm that occasion sometimes demands, though there is 
no undue depression or elation at an unexpected bunker 
or an even unusually fortunate round. 



SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 165 

While I was with the Httle family party at Head- 
quarters there came news that was good, and some that 
was not so good. Neither affected the Commander-in- 
Chief's attitude towards the war, nor the day's work, in 
the least degree whatever. There are all sorts of minor 
criticisms of the Commander-in-Chief at home, mainly 
because the majority of the people know nothing about 
him. He is probably not interested in home comments, 
but is concerned that the Empire should know of the un- 
precedented valour of his officers and men. Consequently 
the doings of the Army are put before the world each day 
with the frankness that is part of Sir Douglas Haig's 
own character. He is opposed to secrecy except where 
military necessity occasions it. He dislikes secret re- 
ports on officers. Those who visit him are treated with 
great candour, and there is always a suitable selection of 
guests at Headquarters to bring variety to the meal-times 
of men who are engaged in their all-absorbing tasks. If 
they are interested in any particular part of the organisa- 
tion, medical, transport, artillery, strategy, they are in- 
vited to ask questions and, if possible, to suggest. In 
many large houses of business there is a suggestion-box 
in which the staff or employees are invited to put forward 
their ideas in writing. I do not know whether there is 
such an institution in the Army, but certainly all sorts of 
new ideas are discussed at the table at General Head- 
quarters. In every case "Can it be done?" takes prece- 
dence of "It can't be done." 

Nor, despite the fact that the Commander-in-Chief is 
a Cavalry officer, does he show any obsession with the 
arm with which the greater part of his military life has 
had to deal. Surrounded by a group of the best experts 
our Empire can provide, most of whom have had 24 
months' war experience, he is in conference with them 



166 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

from morning till late at night. During his daily exer- 
cise ride he has one or other of his staff experts with him. 
The wonderful system of communication established 
throughout the length and breadth of his zone has linked 
up the whole military machine so effectively that infor- 
mation can be gained instantly from most distant and 
difficult parts of his line of operations or communica- 
tions. In the ante-chambers of the Commander-in-Chief's 
small working-room the telephone is rarely silent; and a 
journey into many parts of his Army proved to me that 
out of the two years' struggle have emerged men, and 
often very young men, able to do the Commander-in- 
Chief's bidding or to furnish him with what he desires. 
Out of the necessary chaos of a war that was unexpected 
save by the Army and a few prescient students, have 
emerged Armies in which Scottish precision and courage, 
English dash and tenacity, Irish defiance and devotion, 
Australian and Canadian fierce gallantry all play their 
proper parts. Sir Douglas Haig is fifty-four years of 
age. Many of his staff are greatly his junior. They are 
a grave and serious body of men who have inspired con- 
fidence from one end of the line to the other. They are 
not dull, there is plenty of familiar badinage at the proper 
time. There is deep devotion and loyalty in their labours. 

It is said that most of them have aged a little in their 
ceaseless round of work and anxiety, but they are all at 
a period of life when responsibility can best be borne. 
"War," says Sir Douglas Haig, "is a young man's game." 

A soldier who had fought in the first battle of Ypres 
spoke to me of the Commander-in-Chief as follows : — 

It was just when the Germans had broken our 
line and little parties of our men were retreating. 
At that moment Sir Douglas Haig, then command- 



SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 167 

ing the First Corps, came along the Menin road with 
an escort of his own 17th Lancers, all as beautifully 
turned out as in peace time. They approached 
slowly, and the effect upon our retreating men was 
instantaneous. As Sir Douglas advanced they gath- 
ered and followed him. In the event the Worcesters 
attacked Gheluvelt, which had been taken by the 
enemy, drove them out, and restored the line. The 
Commander-in-Chief's presence was, and is, a talis- 
man of strength to his armies. 

On the last night of my visit to this little company I 
was walking with one of his circle in the gardens, watch- 
ing the flashing of the guns, which looked like summer 
lightning flickering continuously. We had been talking 
of many things other than war, though the war was never 
out of our ears, for the throbbing was perpetual. It 
was late, for the warm night was a temptation to saunter- 
ing and exchange of views. 

As we passed through the hall on our way upstairs 
the door of the Commander-in-Chief's room was open. 
We paused for a moment to watch him bending over the 
map on which the whole world is gazing to-day, the map 
which he is slowly and surely altering for the benefit of 
civilisation and the generations unborn. He was about 
to begin his nightly vigil. 



JOFFRE 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 

THE CREATOR OF THE FRENCH GENERAL STAFF 

From the newspaper headlines to the Man. From the 
hurrying tide of early morning clerkdom in the London 
streets to the good-byes of the morning train to the 
front. From the Red Cross stir of busy Boulogne, now 
become our greatest hospital, past the cheery ranks of 
the newly-landed Territorial battalion, singing their way 
up one of the rare hills of old Flanders. A rush along the 
long straight roads of Picardy through villages packed 
with waiting Turcos, Zouaves, Lancers, Artillerymen, in 
French blue or the new khaki, to the strange calm of the 
Grand Quartier-General of the French Army. 

It is considered indiscreet to indicate the General Head- 
quarters of an army in these days, though the Germans al- 
ways know their exact location, and we know theirs. 
Suffice it to say that the General Headquarters of the 
French Army are at a spot and in a building well known 
to English people. There are very few of us who have 
seen it in its present astonishing quietude. 

The pride and panoply of war have gone, even if they 
ever existed. A visit to General Joffre, save for the 
presence of one or two orderlies at the gate, is just an 
ordinary visit at an ordinary hotel. Pere Joffre, who 
had the destinies of France in his hands, received me at 
the appointed hour to the minute, in a tiny room with a 
long narrow table covered with a white felt top, a room 

171 



172 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

probably sixteen feet long by twelve wide, perfectly plain, 
which most likely was one of the servants' offices in the 
hotel where Headquarters are situated. 

When I re-visited him the other day I found that he 
had exchanged that very humble apartment for one rather 
more suitable to the needs of a man who has to receive 
commissions and deputations as a part of his daily rou- 
tine. It is even yet a simple milieu for the head of one 
of the mightiest forces in the world. I emphasise this 
fact because there appears to be some sort of curious, 
all-prevailing belief in the public mind that army head- 
quarters are abodes of luxury. 

The Generalissimo arrives at his bureau at 6.30 every 
morning, and at 7 he has a conference with the six lead- 
ing officials of the General Staff, or Grand fitat Major, 
and his two aides, both generals, and three other officers. 
At this conference all the reports and despatches of the 
night are gone through and discussed, and orders given 
for the day. Lunch is served always at 11, and always 
consists of the same menu of eggs and cutlets, after 
which, at 12 o'clock, there is another conference. At i 
the General goes out till 4. He either walks or drives, 
generally in the adjacent woods. At 8.30 there is the 
third conference, attended by the same people, and at 9 
punctually, no matter what happens, the General goes to 
bed. He remains all the time at his Headquarters, save 
once a week, when he goes to the front to inspect the 
troops or to see generals. A very efficient telephone serv- 
ice renders more frequent departure from Headquarters 
unnecessary. 

His methods are well illustrated by his procedure at 
the Battle of the Mame. All the orders written by him- 
self were already drawn up on August 27 for the action 
which began on September 5. He pondered them all out. 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 173 

and then pieced the whole battle together bit by bit, 
like a delicate piece of mechanism which, when the time 
came, ran like clockwork. 

His great work in the French Army was the organisa- 
tion of the General Staff when he became Commandant- 
en-Chef in July, 191 1. To this is due the success of the 
French armies against the Germans, for the staffs were 
composed of men who had worked together for three 
years and are employed now over country which they 
know. 

Joffre wears a pale blue vareuse or tunic, of very ample 
proportions, no decorations, save three gold stars on his 
arm and on the cuffs, and the red trousers with the black 
stripe. 

As that great, grey head rose from the writing table 
the impression of the man upon me was that of massive- 
ness. Uniform caps of whatever nationality have the 
effect of making men look more or less alike. The great 
head of Joffre, the iron chin, the kind, rather sad eyes, 
are quite unlike the photographs and equally unlike our 
stupid notion of what we call "the average Frenchman." 
Pere Joffre is from Rivesaltes, in the Pyrenees-Orientales, 
and he speaks slowly, and with no more gesture than a 
Scotsman, in the rich accent of the Midi. 

Joffre has emerged as one of the great personalities 
of the war. Every German prisoner captured knows the 
name and fame of "Shoffer." Frequently in the little 
messages that the Germans shoot with bows and arrows 
into the French lines is the remark, "Ask your General 
Joffre why he is letting you Frenchmen get killed for the 
sake of the English." There is an idea always floating 
in the German mind, from the highest quarters in the 
Wilhelmstrasse to the trenches in the Woevre, that Ger- 
many will be able to effect a separate peace with France. 



174. LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

Should there exist in that deluded nation of 70 millions 
any single individual with a knowledge of French psy- 
chology, a glance at Joffre should be sufficient to teach 
him otherwise. 

Often in years back, discussing the war that was to be, 
we had whispered, "Yes, but will the French produce a 
man?" One basic fact in this matter is that the French 
have thrown up not one man but several. 

"How is he bearing the war?" people asked me in 
Paris. I can truly say that General Joffre in the heat of 
the Battle of Verdun looked strong, well, and cheerful. 
On my previous visit I thought he was showing signs of 
war fatigue. Now in the midst of the colossal series of 
battles that had lasted for months, the head of the won- 
derful French war machine had the healthy look of a 
country squire in those good old days, four years ago, 
when men rode to hounds a couple of days a week. 



CADORNA 



COUNT CADORNA 

HUMOROUS^ ADAMANT AND SUBTLE 

A SHORT, lithe, quick-moving man of sixty-six, Gen- 
eral Cadorna is the most humorous of all the generals 
in the Great War. He has a glitter in his grey eyes that 
reminded me of those of the late Pierpont Morgan. The 
resemblance applies also to the character of the two men, 
for Mr. Morgan was ruthless and kind, and adamant, too, 
when necessary. Those are the characteristics of Italy's 
great general, liked, feared, and respected by every Ital- 
ian soldier or civilian with whom I conversed. 

The Italian and British armies have reached their per- 
fection along very similar roads, but the difficulties of the 
Italians were greater than ours. We were unprepared, 
but united; Italy was unprepared and distracted by fac- 
tion. 

Among those who accomplished what looked like the 
impossible — a quickly improvised defence of Italy against 
her time-honoured enemy, Austria — Luigi Cadorna must 
be given first place. With his must be coupled the name 
of his King, for the King of Italy is not only nominally 
but really the head of the Italian Army, and Cadorna is 
his Chief of Staff. The Italian monarch is so modest 
and self-effacing that he is comparatively little known to 
his own people, though well understood by his soldiers, 
who see him continually. 

He and Cadorna share an advantage not given to most 

177 



178 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

of us in Great Britain. They have been close to the 
enemy so long that they understand the enemy psychology. 
It surprised the rest of the world that the taking of 
Gorizia should be followed by an attempt to bomb St. 
Mark's at Venice. It surprised us that the Germans 
should essay to offset the defeat of the Marne by the de- 
struction of the cathedral at Reims. These things do 
not astonish the Italians and the French; indeed, they 
expect them. 

As one travels about the world and encounters the bus- 
iest people in it, they all seem to share the same charac- 
teristic. They all so economise their time that they Have 
moments for cigars and discourse. That was so with 
Mr. Morgan. (And the blackness of those cigars!) 
That is so with Count Cadorna. He gave me an hour 
and a half one day, in which he did all the interviewing, 
and a very merry luncheon on another day at which he 
kept his table amused all the time. 

His quarters are at Udine, at about the usual distance 
of most headquarters from the firing line, to which the 
great captain pays visits long before most of us are 
awake. 

He is a general who believes in seeing for himself. 
He took personal part in the direction of the final battle 
for Gorizia, climbing the ghastly hill of Podgora with the 
vigour of an Alpino. He is a close student of war, and he 
has all the subtlety of the Italian. In the long story of 
the last three and a quarter years he is almost the only 
general who has devised a surprise. 

Nearly all the men at the extreme top of the war know 
something about the whole war. That is not the case with 
the minor personalities, even in the Higher Command. 
Many generals, in surveying their own small piece of the 
front, think the whole war is there, and judge its success 



COUNT CADORNA 179 

or duration by their own little piece of landscape. It is 
they who, when on leave, tell us cheerfully that the war 
is nearly over, or gloomily that the Boche line is impene- 
trable. Their words are whispered far and wide, and 
are part of the cause of the rumours and counter rumours 
of the clubs and dinner tables. 

Cadorna knows the size of the war as accurately as 
Joffre or Haig. He knows about things with which the 
average soldier does not concern himself, such as the 
effect of German propaganda in the United States and 
the value of a counter effort over there that could be put 
forth by the Italians resident in that country. He knows 
that the Battle of the Somme is part of the Battle of the 
Carso. He is a statesman, too, as well as a soldier, and 
like all Italians, happy to be in alliance with us. His 
communiques are meticulously accurate. 

It seems strange to us that a boy should begin to learn 
soldiering at ten, but that is what Cadorna did, for in 
i860 he went to the Military School at Milan, where he 
was sent by his distinguished father, Count Raffaele Ca- 
dorna, who had married Countess Clementina Zoppi — 
names of note in Italian history. 

At fifteen he proceeded to the Military Academy at 
Turin. At the age of forty-two he had attained the rank 
of Colonel in command of the loth Bersaglieri. For 
some years afterwards he was engaged on his famous 
''Manual of Tactics," which has been reprinted again and 
again during the war, with very little alteration from the 
original edition. 

Cadorna sets his face against personal or family fa- 
vouritism. It is in the blood. In 1870 he had become 
his father's A.D.C., but as soon as there was active work 
to do, the elder Cadorna was given the command of the 
troops which entered Rome in the War of Liberation, 



180 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

and he then dispensed with his son's services. Last year 
the present General Cadorna had his son Raffaele as one 
of his A.D.C.'s, and following the family example, he 
sent the boy back to his regiment directly Italy entered 
the lists. 

With His Excellency General Cadorna (to give him 
his Italian prefix) is General Porro, and along the whole 
of the Italian front are generals who have arrived at 
their position by the ruthless process of elimination nec- 
essary to success in war. Some of the earlier generals 
made mistakes and are gone, as with our army. War is 
just what it always was, and victory is for those who 
make the fewest mistakes. 

One conviction one had in bidding farewell to that 
determined-looking Italian, Luigi Cadorna, was that 
though genial and full of amusing anecdote, he will not 
suffer fools gladly. His telegrams of praise and repri- 
mand, some of which I saw on my visits to the various 
fronts, were models of terseness, written frankly, almost 
brutally indeed — as a soldier should write. 



THE BRITISH SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 



THE BRITISH SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

I HAVE not seen any description of the arrival of our 
dear soldier boys, many of whom have never before left 
England, in the country which is the destination, for good 
or for ill, of the majority of those who leave England 
on the Great Adventure. Quite by chance I have on two 
occasions witnessed the landing abroad of a great number 
of them. 

At three o'clock one morning, in a certain French town^ 
I was awakened by the sound of an English bugle call. 
Throwing open the window I looked out, and there, in the 
glare of tall arc lights, had assembled, as if by magic, a 
great company of English soldiers who had just landed. 
I could hear the roll being called. In a few minutes the 
transport in which they had come had steamed away, and 
the thousand or so young Britons had passed from the 
harbour and were on their way to their fate. The great 
lamps were extinguished, they were gone, and the whole 
thing seemed like a dream. It was a scene queer and 
mysterious, and was not witnessed by any but a few dock 
workers and myself. 

I had forgotten the incident until, the other day at 
Boulogne, I saw, by day, the arrival of another trans- 
port's load. I determined to watch our boys and their 
demeanour on reaching a strange country that was to be 
for them so full of romance and adventure. Bright, 
fresh lads, their English faces looked so red beside those 
of our darker Allies. 

So few hours had elapsed since they had left Eng- 

183 



184. LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

land that many of them still wore the flowers their sweet- 
hearts had given them on leaving. They looked about 
earnestly and curiously; their officers, a little nervous I 
thought, were marshalling them for the roll-call, some- 
what anxious as to what the busy townspeople, hurrying 
to their midday c?^;Vww^r^ would think; the French present 
took very little notice, for they had witnessed this scene 
every day for months. Women went among the soldiers 
selling oranges and cigarettes, and there was a little chaf- 
fing between the French girls and the "Tommies," in 
which the girls did most of the badinage. Soon they 
passed, as I had seen the others do at night, on their way 
to a rest camp, whence they will spread all over North- 
em France, so that eventually one finds them in the most 
unexpected places. 

I have seen them working great barges, running trains 
and steamboats, digging trenches, building bridges, mak- 
ing roads and railways, erecting huts, and always neat 
and spruce. 

The faces of our soldiers, unlike those of the Ger- 
mans, are full of individuality. Our boys have their own 
ways of doing things, and while they are the finest troops 
in the world for trench fighting, being immovable (and 
ferocious! as German prisoners have told me on more 
than one occasion), they have their own peculiarities in 
regard to their food and their living. 

One of the good qualities that particularly distin- 
guish the British soldier from any other is his insistence 
upon smartness. Our "Tommy" has his own walk and 
his own way of wearing his clothes, so distinctive that 
one can distinguish him on the skyline in a country where 
English, French, and Belgians are working together. 

One day I luckily had the interesting experience of 
seeing the depots of part of the English Army, part of 



THE BRITISH SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 185 

the French Army, and part of the Belgian Army. The 
contrast was interesting. "Tommy" is certainly an epi- 
cure, and he is right, for nothing we can give and noth- 
ing we can do can be too good for our boys. For his en- 
joyment we export supplies which, stacked in boxes, torm 
veritable walls of dates, jam, pickled walnuts, chutney, 
and pepper, not to mention bacon, bully beef, butter, and 
cheese. The French soldier is a better cook than 
"Tommy," and he manages with much less meat, but has 
a great deal more bread, much more soup (which he 
makes from bread, leeks, and meat), an occasional 
chicken, when he can get it, coffee, and a little red wine. 

The Italian has, as I have told in another chapter, a 
most varied diet, nourishing soup, two pounds of bread 
and half a pound of meat a day, half a pint of red wine, 
macaroni of various kinds, rice, cheese, fresh and dried 
fruit, chocolate, and in the mountains brandy or Mar- 
sala thrice a week. 

The Belgian soldier Insists on immense quantities of 
potatoes, with soup, cheese, bread and butter, and meat. 

Our Army is perfectly fed according to the demands 
of Its own men. 

There never has been an army so well cared for. Take 
the Y.M.C.A. huts alone. They are to be found every- 
where in the most unlikely places, and are not, as some 
people seem to think, centres for the dissemination of 
cant and tracts, but bright and attractive clubs, where, at 
the minimum price, soldiers can, if they wish, add to the 
good things provided by grateful John Bull. Not only 
are there Y.M.C.A. huts, but there are also those of the 
Church and Salvation Armies, and private efforts in ad- 
dition. 

As for hospital care, the Royal Army Medical Corps, 
the British Red Cross Society, the Canadian and Aus- 



186 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

tralian Red Cross, and the Order of St. John of Jeru- 
salem, with independent bodies, such as the Society of 
Friends and the American Ambulance, have produced or- 
ganisations at whose perfection I stand and marvel. 

Much of it has been made possible by public generos- 
ity at home, much of it by Government foresight and wis- 
dom, much of it by great self-sacrifice on the part of 
workers. I have seen him who is said to be the world's 
greatest surgeon acting as his own dresser in a hospital 
for privates. I saw the King's own doctor the other 
day helping in one of the great hospitals at Wimereux. 
One often hears it said that had the military part of the 
war been conducted with the vigour and prevision that 
have prevailed in the Army Service Corps, the R.A.M.C, 
and the British Red Cross Society; had the munitions, 
big howitzers, and machine guns been thought of as 
quickly as the hospitals and the transport, the Germans 
would have long ago been driven over the Rhine. 

One sometimes feels that while everything has been 
done for "Tommy," not enough has been done for the 
young officers. Their case will require more attention 
before the war is over. Their pay and allowances are 
grossly insufficient. Going to and from the front they 
often have to stop at expensive hotels, and in Hvar time 
everything, of course, is necessarily high in price. I was 
delighted to come across something new at Boulogne in 
the shape of an officers' club founded by Lady Dudley, 
which is exactly what is required for the happiness and 
comfort of officers, to whom, after the mud, toil, and 
danger of the trenches, the place must seem a veritable 
haven. This idea has been extended to other bases and 
centres. The officer has no Y.M.C.A. hut, and is often 
lonely in his comings and goings in a strange land. Lady 



THE BRITISH SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 187 

Dudley's kindly thought and industry in this matter and 
her provision of much Enghsh comfort for the club re- 
mind me that a great many of the enthusiastic ladies who 
volunteered their help at the beginning of the war have 
found the work harder than they thought, and in some 
cases much too onerous for health. 

Yet there are many British, Canadian, and Australian 
women doing all sorts of voluntary work behind the front 
which should, if only as an example, be better known than 
it is. Does one ever think of the fatigue of nurses, of 
the terrific strain many of them endure at times when 
fighting is active? Many of these overworked ladies do 
not get the rest that is needed. Lady Gifford manages the 
beautiful home given by Princess Louise in the woods of 
Hardelot, now yellow with wild daffodils. She told me 
that sometimes the sisters cannot get the sound of the 
guns out of their ears for days, and I can imagine that 
Hardelot, with its beautiful sands and its golf course, is 
a paradise after life in a hospital near the fighting line. 

I have had little talks with some hundreds of our sol- 
diers during the war, and in regard to care and comfort 
and nursing, diet and clothes, the provision for reading 
and smoking, I have never heard a single complaint. The 
health of all is wonderful. The meeting of Scotsman and 
Southerner, Londoner and Provincial, Irishman and Eng- 
lishman is bringing about an interchange of thought that 
will materially alter British politics as soon as the boys 
return home. There are the Canadians, too, with their 
independent thinking and initiative. Now that the Aus- 
tralians and New Zealanders have come tliere will be a 
veritable formation, in France, of an indissoluble bond 
of Empire which, I do not doubt, will have vast influence 
on the future of the world's history. 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 

Headquarters of the Belgian Army, 

March, 1916. 

The little army that first arrested the rush of the Huns^ 
the army that gave the Allies invaluable breathing time, 
has been fighting longer than any of us. 

And it is not too much to say that the v^orld's debt to 
Belgium has increased steadily since those hectic hours 
at Liege and Antwerp. The United States recognises 
its share in the work for civilisation by helping to feed 
the six millions of Belgians who are holding themselves 
so proudly while under the immediate domination of the 
tyrant. 

I had been with the Belgian Army soon after its long 
series of rearguard actions. It was then suffering from 
its great losses; it was war weary, and it needed sleep 
and equipment. It had never lost heart or discipline. 

To-day it is the same army, but renewed. It has no 
great reserves to fall back upon, because the greater part 
of the nation is imprisoned. The wise men who admin- 
ister it under the affectionate care of the King have, 
therefore, while getting into the ranks every possible 
available Belgian of military age, wherever he may be, 
idevoted themselves to the work of refitting and reorgan- 
ising. The result is a perfect little army. 

Belgium is above all things fortunate in having a man. 
For beyond question one of the most vital of all the 
forces among the Allies is the Belgian Minister of War, 

191 



192 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

Baron de Broqueville. For years before the outbreak 
of hostilities The Times had consistently called attention 
to de Broqueville's work and warnings. Except for those 
warnings Belgium would not have been in a position to 
offer the resistance it did to the Monster. De Bro- 
queville is fifty-three and looks younger — though I no- 
tice the war has not left him unmarked since our last 
meeting. He is as alive as our Mr. Hughes, and it is 
remarkable that the views of the two men are alike. 

When I arrived at the house, within hearing of the 
guns, in which he spends alternate weeks between his 
visits to Havre, his secretary, the young Comte de 
Lichtervelde, had just finished reading to him one of Mr. 
Hughes's speeches. Monsieur de Lichtervelde, who 
knows England and the United States very well indeed, 
makes it his duty, as part of his secretarial work, to keep 
his chief well informed in world happenings. A courier 
each afternoon brings that same morning's Times. 

M. de Broqueville, who is as good-looking and well- 
groomed as he is alert, discussed the whole of the Euro- 
pean and world situation incisively, frankly, and with a 
vigour and directness most refreshing to one whose mis- 
fortune it is to dwell within reach of the miasmic ex- 
halations of the Upas Tree of Westminster. Some of 
our Germanophils twit Mr. Hughes with not being an 
expert on Germany. That charge cannot be brought 
against M. de Broqueville, whose country knows, alas! 
too much of peaceful penetration by commerce, capture 
of public opinion by subsidisation, and political, educa- 
tional, artistic, and musical espionage. And so Mr. 
Hughes from Australia and the Baron de Broqueville 
from Brussels agree exactly as to the Huns. Like all 
Belgians of the ruling class, de Broqueville is deeply 
grateful for British help, and is a warm admirer of the 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 193 

steady improvement in our Army. But I had not come 

to to discuss politics or to receive compliments. 

My desire was to revisit the soldiers with whom I had 
sojourned after their bloodily-contested retreat against 
overwhelming forces. 

So after gaining a great deal of extremely interesting 
information which I do not propose to present to the 
Germans, and enquiring after Mme. de Broqueville, who 
has remained courageously at Brussels while her hus- 
band takes charge of his King's Government, I made 
my way by road to the enchanting little sixteenth-century 
scene where the brain of the Belgian Army is installed. 

Army headquarters are very much the same every- 
where, save as to their situation. General Wielemans, 
who is Chief of Staff of his Majesty the King, the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, has very capable advisers in General 
Biebuyck, Aide-de-Camp to the King, and General 
D'Orjo, M. de Broqueville's Chef de Cabinet. General 
Wielemans, who speaks English and knows England well, 
asked me what I should particularly like to see, and ar- 
ranged that the next day I should be taken along the Bel- 
gian trenches by Colonel Detail, under Chief of Staff. 

Though the shortest of the lines held by the Allies, the 
Belgian line is, in proportion to the free Belgian popula- 
tion, much the longest. It occupies a difficult and ex- 
tremely uncomfortable position, for in no part of the 
war zone is the mud of Flanders blacker and deeper than 
in the Belgian trenches. 

I told General Wielemans that what the English pub- 
lic would be interested to learn something about is the 
very efficient Belgian artillery which has rendered so ex- 
cellent an account of itself. ,It is no secret that Belgian 
preparations were not such as Baron de Broqueville had 
for years urged, but in the matter of artillery the gallant 



194 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

little army had acquired great proficiency, doubtless partly 
by reason of its association with those masters of the 
gun, the French. That the Belgians are well equipped 
with great cannon, big howitzers, 75's, and machine-guns, 
and that every gun has a plentiful supply of shells of 
every description is abundantly well known to Hans and 
Fritz on the other side of the inundations and elsewhere 
along the Belgian front. 

I asked General Wielemans if he would allow me to 
take a quiet and unobtrusive seat in one of his batteries 
during such time as an artillery duel was timed to rage 
vigorously. He readily assented, and I was taken by M. 
de Lichtervelde and Colonel Detail to Lieutenant General 
de Ceunink, who, with Major-General Orth, after some 
consultation, found me at a considerable distance a par- 
ticularly lively young artillery officer, whose four "pets," 
as he called them in English, were timed to perform that 
afternoon. 

Our way lay through ruined sixteenth-century Flem- 
ish villages, where the churches in almost every case had 
been shelled to fragments and where also in almost every 
case the carved wooden Christ (often as not of the fer- 
vent Spanish type dating from Spanish times) remained, 
as by some miracle, untouched. 

I was long loth to believe that the Germans selected 
churches as artillery objectives, but personal examina- 
tion of more than 100 shelled towns proves it. And 
with the churches usually goes the churchyard; open 
coffins, shrouded corpses, and grinning skulls show that 
the modern Prussian takes as much pleasure in revealing 
the secrets of the grave as he does in the destruction of 
his enemy's wife and child. 

In one of the small ruined towns we visited, three 
hundred of the population still remained, and will not 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 195 

leave. An old, old man was bending over a little garden, 
a lusty young woman was scrubbing at a tub while her 
little son was playing with shell fragments. The whole 
district, every street and open place, was a series of gi- 
gantic troiu de marmites (shell holes), filled with water, 
in one of which a couple of little people were sailing a 
paper boat. There were no guns or anything military 
whatever in the town, but it was being bombarded pe- 
riodically by Germans, probably in reply to dexterous 
British artillery work at Ypres. 

It is a thousand pities that expert kinematograph 
operators are not sent to these places to prove to the 
world that German warfare, especially in these later days 
of the conflict, is at least as much directed against the 
civil population as against the military. French gunners 
score a success in Champagne, and, in reply, the Germans 
throw asphyxiating shells into Reims, and so on in all 
the theatres of war, 

I do not propose to give the least indication of the 
situation of the battery with which I spent some very 
interesting hours. The Huns have never found it, nor, 
indeed, any of the French or Belgian batteries I have 
entered. For the detective powers of the aeroplane ob- 
server have been countered by extraordinary ingenuity in 
concealment on the part of artillerymen. 

There was the usual dog attached to it, some sort of 
mongrel that always seems to like to be with men in 
dangerous places. By an ingenious arrangement of 
barbed wire a nice large cage of starlings, finches, and 
sparrows, who did not in the least mind the guns, had 
been arranged; they were hopping merrily and eating 
well. A spring garden with crocuses and primroses had 
been planted. 

The dug-outs had all sorts of amusing names; one was 



196 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

called "The Virtuous Repose," and another, in English, 
"Home, Sweet Home." The captain in charge of the 
battery, who had been alongside and among the English 
in the early stages of the war and had picked up a good 
deal of English, which, like most Belgians, he liked to 
exercise, speedily explained the system on which he 
worked his 75's, for each of which he had a pet name. 
He showed me his map, with frequent aeroplane correc- 
tions in red Ink, of the enemy's position in front of 
him. He demonstrated the extreme facility of the ele- 
vating and deflecting apparatus of his four favourites. 
He had not yet received his instructions as to what was 
to be the programme of his day's work. They would 
come by telephone from certain Headquarters. Mean- 
while, I might like to go down Into his "wine cellar" and 
see the excellent array of "bottles," as he called them. 

We bent low and went deep, deep into the earth, and 
his electric torch revealed a fine display of shells. Some 
had been made in England. There were several types 
of shells and several kinds of fuzes. "Very good bot- 
tles Indeed, hein?" he said In broken English. 

We came above ground again and listened to the va- 
rious forms of artillery that were to be heard around 
us. "Those," he said, asking me to listen to a continu- 
ous series of salvoes, "are your Englishmen. Plenty 
shells now." Miles away there was the deep roar of 
something big, reminding me of the voices of Verdun. 
"That," he remarked, "Is Belgian howitzer." The men 
were smoking and waiting about, taking no notice what- 
ever of the occasional burstings of German messages 
that threw up great clouds of mud. 

Suddenly there came the ring of the telephone bell, 
taking one for the moment quickly back to London, but 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 197 

carrying a very different message from that which one 
receives in one's office. 

Instantaneously the men sprang down to their guns, 
and then I saw the marvellous working of these 75's, 
whose sharp bang, bang I have heard at so many points at 
the front. A quick order was shouted as to the direc- 
tion and elevation, there was a slight pause, the little 
chamber and its Rembrandt-like faces were lit up for 
a moment as by the flame of a smithy, a roar came that 
was gentle after the earth-shaking at Verdun, and then 
silence till, kilometres away, we heard our shells bursting. 

The gunners were waiting to hear the telephone report 
from the observer. Within a few seconds it was re- 
ceived — "Too short." 

Another try. "Too far" came the verdict. 

At the third shot came the report, "A hit," and then 
was revealed to me the magic of the 75. 

The gun recoils so quickly that it can be stoked with 
shells and fired, in the hands of really trained gunners, 
with a speed most extraordinary to watch. 

I remember well the first time that I saw a cannon 
fired in war. I did so with reluctance, not wishing to 
participate even by observation in the sending forth of 
that which would destroy life, or wound. But the spec- 
tacle of these smashed towns and babies' graves in France 
and Belgium has removed any sentimental nonsense of 
that kind from my conception of war, and so, knowing 
that these Belgian gunners were helping to weary and 
destroy the nwral of an army that did not disdain to 
initiate gas poisoning, and the throwing of flame and 
even vitriol, I confess to enthusiastic rejoicing at this 
remarkable little organisation that is only one of hun- 
dreds the Belgians possess. 

A good artillery battle reminds one very much of a 



198 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

quick lawn-tennis volley, and in this matter of artillery 
reply the Latins certainly are speedier than the Huns. 

A signal presently brought the order to cease fire from 
this particular battery, and immediately afterwards a 
little further down the line other voices spoke. 

We made our way back through the mud to a dis- 
tant highway, and then a long walk brought us to our 
motor, which was sheltered behind one of the few walls 
still remaining in that district. 

At a very pleasant and simple Headquarters repast, 
iVerdun, the English Fleet, and the latest wireless were 
discussed, and then every one went about his business. 
Army Headquarters have settled down to the regulation 
and prompt routine of all efficient business organisations. 
The improved Belgian Army, as regards the higher com- 
mand, efficiency, equipment, cavalry, infantry, artillery, 
and transport is, like our own, the creation of nearly 
nineteen months of war, and it is said that war is the best 
school for war. 

Nor are the medical arrangements of the Army neg- 
lected. Inspector-General Melis, who is well known in 
England, and is a hard-headed, practical man, had to 
deal with almost insuperable difficulties when the Ger- 
mans seized practically the whole of the Belgian Red 
Cross materiel in their advance. He has excellent hos- 
pitals at various points that need not be mentioned, lest 
they tempt Hun gunners unduly. There is one little Eng- 
lish hospital which I must not forget — the Belgian Field 
Hospital. Its windows rattle night and day with the 
vibration of the guns. Its career has been one of ad- 
venture, for it began life at Antwerp in September, 19 14. 

On the night I paid my respects the Belgian Field Hos- 
pital was quite full. I found an excellent Scotch doctor 
and matron, and a number of devoted nurses, who have 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 199 

been with it since the day it started travelling across 
Belgium, during the time it was shelled out of Furnes, 
where I had seen it before, and throughout all its vicissi- 
tudes. The whole establishment is ready, if necessary, at 
any moment to move again. 

Among the patients that day were a number who were 
desperately wounded by a very common form of accident. 
Souvenir rings from the trenches are being sought for 
all over the world. They are made of aluminum ob- 
tained from the German fuzes, and unexploded fuzes 
are the cause of numerous fatalities. 

In every ward of this hospital, in every Belgian dug- 
out, in every room I entered in the little part of Belgium 
that is now in Belgian hands, and on the table of the Min- 
ister of War and his General, are pictures of the heroic 
King and Queen, who are known by sight to every sol- 
dier in the army, and to whom the whole of this very 
efficient Belgian force is deeply devoted. 



WARPLANES 



WARPLANES 

SOME OF THE TYPES 

Like the modern machine-gun, and other war develop- 
ments, the aeroplane began in the United States. The 
two brothers Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, were the men 
who revokitionised the business of war. I have often 
wondered if in the Wrights' early experiments at Kitty- 
hawk, N. Carolina, they realised to the full the tre- 
mendous weapon they were placing in the hands of the 
modern artilleryman. 

I knew Wilbur Wright and saw some of the begin- 
nings of aviation. Orville, the remaining brother, has 
behaved with great generosity to us in the disposal of 
the British patents. We have as yet accorded no na- 
tional recognition to the Wrights, excepting the Albert 
medal of the Royal Society of Arts, which I had the 
great pleasure of presenting. 

There are four purposes in the war to which the in- 
vention of those modest inventors has been put, and 
each purpose is in itself a revolutionary change in war- 
fare. On the whole I should say that the direction of 
artillery fire is the chief result as yet attained by the use 
of the Wrights' invention. Artillery work has, of course, 
produced by far the greatest amount of damage on land 
since the war began. Without the aeroplane big guns 
would be of little use except against objects visible to 
the artilleryman. With the aeroplane, from which sig- 

203 



204 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

nals can be made either by wireless or by day-time electric 
heliographs, the artilleryman soon learns his errors, and, 
owing to the precision of modern weapons, can follow 
with amazing sureness the advice of the aeroplane ob- 
server. 

The type of machine used for observing, like all the 
latest patterns of warplanes, is now armoured with steel 
in its most vulnerable parts and provided with a machine- 
gun in case it should be attacked. These observing aero- 
planes should be able, as far as is yet possible, to hover 
in the air in order that the man with the telescope who 
sits in front or behind the pilot may be able to see as ac- 
curately as possible where the shells are falling. But the 
observing aeroplane has to be sufficiently rapid to escape 
the fighting plane that will most certainly be sent up after 
it as speedily as it is discovered. 

A second type comprises the fighting planes. 

These should be armed as heavily as possible, and it 
is no secret that the French are putting quite large cannon 
in aeroplanes. They may be managed by one, two or 
three men, and in certain types each of the men can be a 
combatant. In this matter of adapting aeroplanes to 
air-fighting the French, who speedily developed the 
Wrights' invention, took the lead. 

Such machines are fitted with searchlights worked from 
dynamos driven by little windmills in the planes. They 
are provided with either a small cannon or one or two 
machine-guns, and the fighting man is further armed with 
a long-distance revolver. His work is the most danger- 
ous in the war. It is a game for young men only and for 
the very pick of the human race as regards quickness, 
audacity, knowledge of engine, coolness, resource, and 
good shooting. Such a man must be prepared, if neces- 
sary, to dive head foremost one or two thousand feet at 



WARPLANES 205 

the enemy. He is the man on whom we rely to kill the 
Zeppelins. 

The early air duels were of slow movement. The 
battles of to-day resemble the swift flight of the swallow 
and the swoop of the hawk. 

I am indebted to the French authorities for opportu- 
nity of close study of their machines and methods. 

I have also seen something of the splendid work of our 
R.F.C. in France. 

Air-fighting is changing so rapidly that the attempt 
at simplification of a complex and new arm may be out 
of date before the book is out of the hands of the bind- 
ers. 

The vital factor of the aeroplane — and this applies to 
all the four types with which I am dealing — is the en- 
gine, its capacity and weight. The heavier the engine, the 
slower the machine's ability to rise and the less gun- 
weight and ammunition and petrol it can carry. 

A third type of aeroplane, which has attracted most 
attention but has not really been so important as the 
first and second types I have described, is the bomb- 
dropper. At the beginning of the war bomb-dropping 
was very effective, because the flyers, in the absence of 
efficient anti-aircraft artillery, were able to fly low and 
aim carefully at ammunition depots, railroad junctions, 
Zeppelin sheds, and other fairly large objects. Some of 
the early flying was done at merely six thousand feet 
from the ground. Anti-aircraft guns speedily caused the 
airmen to fly much higher, and to-day, at twelve to fifteen 
thousand feet, they have little chance of aiming with such 
degree of precision. They can hit a town, of course, but 
to damage a particular building in a town is more or less 
chance work. Flying at this height an aeroplane could 
perhaps hit Waterloo Station or the Stock Exchange dis- 



206 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

trict, but it could not with certainty locate, let us say, a 
particular building like St. Paul's. 

In addition to the height at which the machine must 
fly to avoid guns, there has to be a large allowance made 
for windage, and also recognition of the fact that the 
aeroplane itself is flying at from forty to fifty miles an 
hour while it is dropping the bombs. As a rule, the raids 
of bomb-droppers are now undertaken by twenty to thirty 
machines, which fly in the form of a wedge, with a leader 
in front. The bomb-droppers are often protected by 
fighting planes, though every bomb-dropper carries his 
own machine-gun for self-defence. 

Almost the most interesting utilisation of the aero- 
plane is for photographic scouting. I well remember 
discussing the uses of the aeroplane with the brothers 
Wright, when, in reply to the criticism of some one 
present as to the danger of scouting by aeroplane, they 
pointed out that, after all, one aeroplane would be able 
to do more scouting than a whole squadron of cavalry. 
Events have proved that they were more than right, be- 
cause the scouting aeroplane carries with it not only hu- 
man eyes but the eyes of a camera, and in no department 
of war work has there been greater progress during the 
last few months than in photography by aeroplane. At 
the headquarters of each army are large plans of the op- 
posing enemy trenches and also of suspected gun posi- 
tions. These are corrected at regular intervals, when 
the weather is suitable, by photographs taken with tele- 
scopic lenses, these photographs being speedily developed, 
printed, enlarged, and used for bringing up to date our 
knowledge of the enemy line. 

To deceive the aeroplane observers each side resorts 
to all kinds of tricks. There are dummy guns that ac- 



WARPLANES 207 

tually fire, and, of course, there are endless ordinary 
dummy guns of wood. 

A use to which the aeroplane has not yet been effec- 
tively put is sea observation. The British Navy has 
aeroplanes and seaplanes, and excellent ones too — all the 
navies of the world have aeroplanes — but these cannot 
leave, or return, to water in rough weather. Experi- 
ments have been tried in the United States, France, and 
England for starting aeroplanes from ships. There Is a 
fruitful field for the inventor who can perfect this scheme, 
not on paper but in practice. An aeroplane can fly in 
almost any weather. A Zeppelin or other airship is at 
the mercy of the wind. The man who perfects a means 
of releasing an aeroplane from a battleship and providing 
for its safe return in any weather in which ships can fight 
will achieve a revolution in sea warfare as important 
as the aeroplane has created in war on land. 



THE WAR DOCTORS 



THE WAR DOCTORS 

THEIR WORK UNDER FIRE 

Among the first forces mobilised by the Germans at 
the end of July, 1914, were the kinematographers and 
the artists. The German Empire has therefore a com- 
plete pictorial record of the war from its earliest days. 
We have lately begun to use the kinematograph. And 
we have also started to enshrine by colour and canvas 
the lives of our men. Now that we have sent out some 
of our best painters the War Doctor should be among 
the first of the men at the front to be made known and 
perpetuated. 

We are so accustomed to consider doctors as part of 
our daily lives, or as workers in speckless and palatial 
hospitals, that we have hardly yet visualised the man who 
shares the hell of the front trench with the fighters, 
armed only with two panniers of urgent drugs, instru- 
ments, and field dressings, his acetylene lamp and elec- 
tric torch. Most of us think of his war work as being 
accomplished at one of the great healing places at the 
base. 

If there be degrees of chivalry, the highest award 
should be accorded to the medical profession, which at 
once forsook its lucrative practices in London, or Mel- 
bourne, or Montreal, in a great rally of self-sacrifice. 
The figures of the casualties among them bring home to 
those who have only the big hospital idea of the war doc- 

211 



212 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

tor, sad facts that should lead to due understanding of 
this not sufficiently known but veritable body of Knights 
in the Great Crusade. During three months in the Royal 
Army Medical Corps alone — I account them according 
to the figures published in The Times from day to day — 
these medical service casualties were: — 

Officers Killed 53 

Wounded , 208 

" Missing ,. . . . 4 

N.C.O.'s and Men (R.A.M.C. only) : 

Killed . ,. . 260 

Wounded 1,212 

Missing , 3 

I propose to set down the order in which our medical 
service arranges its chain of responsibility, premising 
my account by the statement that the medical army of 
to-day exceeds numerically the whole British military 
forces overseas before the outbreak of war. 

It is a little difficult and complex to explain. I find 
that there is some confusion in the public mind as to the 
regimental work, that of the Royal Army Medical Corps, 
and their handmaidens the British Red Cross Society and 
Order of St. John, But there is no confusion or over- 
lapping in the zone of hostilities. 

In the preparations for the great Battle of the Somme, 
Sir Douglas Haig, thorough in this as in every other 
detail, himself co-operated with the medical services in 
arranging his regimental aid posts, his casualty clearing 
stations, and the rest of them as systematically as his 
batteries, his ammunition "dumps," and his reserves. 

First in the order of danger is the Regimental Aid 
Post, where the regimental doctor, with his stretcher- 



THE WAR DOCTORS 213 

bearers, awaits, alongside the men who are to clamber 
"over the top," the bloody fruits of battle. In the early 
days of the war, before we had discovered the secret, or 
had the means, to blast our road into Germany by cease- 
less shells, the Regimental Aid Post was, as a rule, in 
some deserted farmhouse as near to the front trench as 
possible. To-day, as we advance, our guns leave noth- 
ing standing, so that what was once perhaps a chateau 
is now only a stretch of rubble. There is therefore but 
little available cover for the doctors or the others before 
"consolidation." 

The intensity of the French and German artillery at 
Verdun in March seemed to me then the limit of human 
capacity to produce noise and destruction. But the 
Somme bombardment actually furrowed or flattened all 
before it. Verdun itself could not exist a week if ex- 
posed to this fearful French and British cannonade. Its 
volume of sound is so great that at times the very earth 
shakes beneath one's feet. 

The doctor has to-day probably only the shelter of 
one of our own trenches or any little part that may re- 
main of a captured German trench. There is no other 
covering for him and his brave stretcher-bearers, who 
are at once his nurses and his orderlies. Happily not 
so many of these are fired upon by the enemy as hereto- 
fore; for, as the Prussians have realised that our ar- 
tillery is the most deadly thing in the history of war, 
they have become a good deal more reasonable and 
human. Now that their own wounded greatly outnum- 
ber ours on almost every occasion, their doctors and 
stretcher-bearers often advance with a sheet or towel 
held high on a rifle as a flag of truce in order that they 
may collect their wounded and we ours. In the early 
days of the war similar suggestions on our part were 



2U LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

haughtily and contemptuously refused. And so the ad- 
vanced medical forces on both sides are at last sparing 
the wounded a good deal of the drawn-out horrors of 
"No Man's Land." 

The fine young men with the English, Scotch, Irish, 
Canadian, and Australian accents who stand unarmed 
in these Regimental Aid Posts work with an intensity 
and celerity which eclipse even that of the surgeons in 
London's operating theatres. 

The stretcher-bearers stagger in with their load. There 
is a lightning diagnosis, an antiseptic application, ban- 
daging, a hastily-written label tied to the man's breast, 
and the wounded one is borne off and away in the open 
to the next stage, the Advanced Dressing Station, which 
is as often as not also pushed right up into the fire zone. 
The regimental stretcher-bearers therefore begin again 
another dangerous pilgrimage rearwards. 

As there is much ignorance in the public mind on the 
subject of casualties, it should be well realised that by 
far the greater proportion of our wounded are slightly 
hit, and are "walking cases," so little hurt that in in- 
numerable instances where the stretcher-bearers them- 
selves have fallen they have been carried by the slightly 
wounded soldiers. 

I know no more moving experience than an afternoon 
in an advanced dressing station. Let me describe that 
of West Peronne. Its location is changed now, so I am 
giving the enemy no information. We reached it on a 
heavy and sultry Sunday afternoon by hiding ourselves 
behind anything possible. Dust and smoke gave the at- 
mosphere of a coming thunder-storm, the thudding of 
the guns on both sides was incessant. Now and then 
was heard the brisk note of a machine-gun, which sounds 
for all the world like a boy rasping a stick along palings 



THE WAR DOCTORS 



215 




or the rattle which policemen carried in Mid-Victorian 
days. 

There was no sign of anything in the nature of a hos- 
pital, a tent, or of anything above ground. I was get- 
ting somewhat weary of being told to lie down flat every 



216 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

few seconds to avoid bursting shells, when I saw a couple 
of stretcher-bearers coming through the haze as from 
nowhere and then disappear underground. "It is under- 
neath there," I was told by my guide, whose daily duty it 
was to inspect these medical outposts. 

As quickly as possible we got down into a trench and 
followed the stretcher-bearers. There, in darkness lit 
by a few candles, we gradually made out a very grim 
scene. Talking was difficult, for one of our batteries 
had just come into action a few yards away. 

Owing to the heavy enemy shell fire, what I soon 
found to be an underground maze — a plan of which ap- 
pears on page 215 — had become completely blocked 
with wounded men lying in the dark on their stretchers, 
the passage ways dug out of the clayish earth being just 
the width of a stretcher handle and no more. We trod 
gently from stretcher handle to stretcher handle over the 
silent men, some of them asleep with the blessed morphia 
in their brains, others cheerily smiling, others staring as 
wounded men do. All who could move a hand had a 
cigarette — now admitted to be the first need of all but 
the very dangerously wounded. 

Passing on, and using our electric torch as little as 
possible, so as not to disturb the sleepers, w^e came to the 
main dressing room. Remember it was all underground, 
all dark, and that the oncoming wail of approaching 
shells, with immediate subsequent explosions, was con- 
tinuous. 

In this main dressing room the doctors, all young men, 
some of them subalterns of the R.A.M.C, were wash- 
ing and bandaging with the care and speed that can be 
seen in the War films. I counted twenty-four patients 
in that small chamber. We crept onward and came to 
another room where there were nine cases, and again 



THE WAR DOCTORS 217 

to a smaller one where lay the more dangerously 
wounded. 

These dressing rooms were protected by some four or 
five feet of earth above them. There was a small offi- 
cers' mess and a medical storeroom, which were merely 
shielded by corrugated iron from shrapnel splinters, a 
kitchen, an office, and that was about all. An operation 
for tracheotomy was taking place in one of the dressing 
rooms. 

In all my many experiences abroad I have never seen 
a more touching sight than this little underground gath- 
ering of some seventy men, devoted doctors and assist- 
ants, waiting amidst the incessant shelling until the over- 
crowded maze could be evacuated. Let those who take 
their ease on a Sunday afternoon, or any other after- 
noon, realise that this same scene never ceases. Let 
those who consider that they are amply doing their '"bit" 
by keeping things going at home be grateful that their 
"bit" is not as that of these young men. We cannot all 
of us share the danger, but we can every one of us admit 
the harsh inequalities of our respective war work. 

One or two of the patients were shell-shock victims, 
and it was piteous to note their tremor at the approach- 
ing shell wails and subsequent thuds just outside our lit- 
tle catacomb. 

The plan appearing on page 215 gives a suggestion of 
the ingenuity with which the R.A.M.C. officers have con- 
verted a bit of an old German trench- work to the pur- 
poses of an underground hospital and home for the doc- 
tors and their assistants. 

The shelling increased in intensity. It became ob- 
vious that we had to remain concealed till the storm had 
ceased. In the intervals we discussed things about 



218 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

wounded men. We learned that quite a considerable 
proportion of them had dressed their own wounds with 
the little first field dressing that is sewn Into the tunic of 
every soldier. Others had got along well enough with 
the medical help of regimental stretcher-bearers. The 
rest had been tended at the Regimental Aid Posts to 
which I have referred. 

Presently the Germans diverted the attention of their 
gunners to another point of the line, and we were able 
to emerge into daylight once more and join a small com- 
pany of lightly wounded and stretcher-bearers on their 
way to a Walking Wounded Collecting Station. I 
name all these distinct stages in the progress of the 
wounded man in order to show how carefully the sys- 
tem has been thought out and organised. It is a tribute 
to the foresight of our medical authorities that all this 
vast scheme had been arranged before the war. 

On our way rearwards to the Walking Wounded Col- 
lecting Station we were passed by some horse-ambu- 
lances which, summoned by telephone, were proceeding 
to the underground hospital we had just left. On our 
way we escaped the only enemy aeroplane attack that 
came to my notice during this visit to the front. An 
officer and a few men were wounded. It speaks elo- 
quently for the celerity with which our casualties are 
cleared when I tell you that on the same evening, many 
miles away In the rear, I saw this particular wounded 
officer sitting in bed nonchalantly enjoying his dinner. 
By the next day, I was told, he would probably be in 
England. 

The Walking Wounded Collecting Station consisted 
of marquees in which a considerable number of Tommies 
of all dialects were partaking of a hearty meal. As 



THE WAR DOCTORS 219 

each arrived his name and regimental number were en- 
tered, with particulars of his case. Where necessary his 
dressings were re-arranged, and in every case a cigarette 
was offered. Prodigious quantities of tea, cocoa, soup, 
bread, butter and jam were disappearing. Despite the 
bandaged heads and arms of some and the limping of 
others, they were a merry, if tired, party. Eagerly and 
in vigorous and unprintable Anglo-Saxon one of them 

said : "I want to have another smack at the Alle- 

mans." In a tent was a wounded officer, famous in 
the world of big game. (scarred as the result of a miracu- 
lous escape from an African elephant), who, though 
covered with blood, had only one anxiety, and that was 
to have his wound dressed, get a bath, and return to his 
men in time for the next "stunt" — to use an American 
expression which has grown fixedly into our war 
language. Two days before, this Walking Wounded 
Collecting Station had been shelled by the enemy. By 
a strange stroke of fortune the only victims were a large 
number of German prisoners. 

Life is held gaily and cheaply in these advanced hos- 
pitals. There was a small underground chamber here 
fitted with bunks as on shipboard, in which the officers 
could sleep if they chose, but they did not seem to be 
particular whether they used it or not. 

We shared the soldiers' meal, listened to their stories 
— each one of them a full adventure in peace time — and 
continued basewards, accompanied by motor ambulances 
in which sitting cases were carried, to a great Corps Col- 
lecting Station, a veritable Clapham Junction of the evac- 
uating system. 

To prevent mistakes, each man's label is checked at 
every point he arrives at with as much care as a regis- 
tered letter on its way through the post. There is no 



220 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

Red Tape, and nothing is left to chance. There is no 
lost time. It is never forgotten that pain is ever pres- 
ent and that saving time may mean saving life. But 
even though we have not yet come to that link in the 
chain — the hospital which is kept neat and burnished by 
the hand of woman — all is well arranged and spotlessly 
clean. Many dressings were being re-examined and 
many wounds again attended to. 

Here I saw the field operating theatre nearest to the 
battle. It was in a spotless tent with a table, a power- 
ful acetylene lamp, chloroform, and instruments — all 
ready. Operations in the field are a rare exception in 
the British Army. The matter of their necessity has 
been discussed and re-discussed. There are arguments 
for and against. But Sir Arthur Sloggett, General 
Macpherson, and the famous surgeons we have at the 
front, with Sir Alfred Keogh at home, may be relied 
upon to know their business to the tips of their fingers. 
In other armies, notably the Italian, urgent operations 
take place in what answer to our Advanced Dressing 
Stations. An Italian officer said to me: "We should 
not do it unless we had to. Many of our cases would 
not stand transport from our Alpine heights." 

Resuming our journey with the ambulances, we came, 
after an hour's halting journey through the dust and 
the A.S.C. convoys to a Casualty Clearing Station — 
the first hospital of a kind visualised by the general pub- 
lic. 

I have discovered from their conversation that very 
few people realise the intricate nature of the net spread 
by the R.A.M.C. over the field of war. The meshes are 
many — but not too many. An important part of the 
net are these very perfect clearing establishments. The 
description of two will be sufficient. 



THE WAR DOCTORS 221 

One of these Clearing Stations was a large old water- 
mill which had been transformed into a most beautiful 
hospital. I reached it in time to witness the arrival of 
the ambulances. Out of them came all manner of 
wounded, British and German. Friend and foe were 
treated alike. They were just wounded men — that was 
all. Such as could walk by themselves or with the help 
of orderlies, came out dazed into the sunlight from the 
ambulances. The Germans, who had for days been 
trench-bound by our barrage, were, as a rule, horribly 
dirty and impossible to approach for physical reasons. 
Later, at another hospital I saw gently-born V.A.D. 
nurses washing great unbathed wounded Prussians and 
Bavarians. I felt positively guilty when I thought of 
the chaff with which the V.A.D. movement, its uniforms 
and salutings, was received ten years ago in the bad old 
days when we ought to have been preparing for war. 

Here, in this mill Casualty Clearing Station, the 
broken soldiers came for the first time under the influ- 
ence and gentle touch and consoling smile of women 
nurses. Many of the men had been in and about the 
firing line for weeks, several of the Germans for longer 
than that. I talked with some of the enemy who had 
arrived a day or two before in what must have seemed a 
fairy palace. Some spoke of the care, kindness, good 
food, flowers, and music (the gramophone never stops) 
which were provided. As a rule they are grateful — at 
any rate at first. Some are very grateful. One officer 
used the word "lovingly" (liebvoll), and "lovingly" it 
must seem, for nothing is more marked in inspecting 
German hospitals, even such an establishment as the 
Rudolf Virchow Hospital in Berlin, than to notice the 
roughness of the surgery, the callousness shown in 



222 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

making remarks before patients, and the inferiority of 
the under-trained nurses. 

Some are not grateful and, like the pampered civilians 
at the Alexandra Palace, think it necessary to place on 
record complaints based on mere hostility. 

This Casualty Clearing Station, placid with its river, 
with its sunny gardens — into which many beds had been 
carried so that the wounded might enjoy the birds, the 
flowers, and trees — seems like an oasis after the grim 
desolation of the wilderness of the Somme heights. 

It is impossible to convey in words the amazing tireless 
activity of the nurses and doctors. I did not know that 
human beings could work so many hours without sleep 
at the most anxious kind of work the world provides. 
No wonder that the women sometimes break down and 
require hostels and rest homes. Yet during a number 
of war visits I have not met with one complaint from 
any member of any medical staff in the field or else- 
where. There is, on the other hand, the same continu- 
ous enthusiasm throughout the medical service as one 
sees in the great boot factory at Calais, in the vast motor 
repair shop in Paris, or our transport from Havre to 
the Front. The stimulus of war seems to double the 
energy of every human being as soon as he lands in 
France. 

At this great Casualty Clearing Station by the railway 
the hospital trains were collecting. When we had been 
shown through the cool tents and had talked with men 
we happened to know, we went on to the newly made 
railway platform where the stretchers were being as- 
sembled. It was a scene almost of gaiety. The gram- 
ophone was playing the inevitable 'Tf You Were the 
Only Girl in the World." Jokes, cigarettes, and news- 
papers were passed about. The men looked the acme 



THE WAR DOCTORS 223 

of content in their beautiful white train. They were 
willing and anxious to chat. They were interested in all 
that was going on, and grateful. Many might be going 
to "Blighty" (Britain), the paradise of the wounded 
man's imagination. 

I do not know whether any one has written an account 
of these trains, the doctors and nurses who live in them 
year in and year out, travelling thousands of miles in 
the course of a twelvemonth, but some one should do 
so. My own information is as yet so scanty as to be 
little worth reading.^ Of the wonderful hospital barges, 
too, which, whenever possible, are used on the wide 
French rivers and canals to carry cases that cannot stand 
any shaking, not enough has been said. 

It was interesting at the Clearing Station to see evi- 
dence of the Red Cross Society in the existence of the 
comfortable English beds of many of the sufferers. In 
the world of wounded all sorts of little things have an 
importance not understood by the generality of us. A 
man likes to lie in bed rather than on a stretcher not 
merely for the sake of custom and comfort. Such is 
human nature that one man feels proud of having a bed 
when another man has not. 

The train took away all in a fit condition for travel, 
leaving behind such cases as those of serious chest, ab- 
dominal, and head wounds in the care of surgeons. 

On a later day I saw the arrival of one such train at 
one of those hospitals which look out on the sea and 
are situated on the Northern French coast, which long 
before the war was recognised as a great healing place. 
The medical journals tell their readers in their own lan- 
guage of these wonderful hospitals — converted casinos 

^ I have since read with interest a remarkable record, "The Diary 
of a Nursing Sister" (WiUiam Blackwood and Sons). 



224. LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

and hotels and miles of perfectly-equipped huts. Our 
hospitals in France are a world of their own. I do not 
know how many women and men they employ, but I 
should say more than one hundred thousand. In the 
Etaples district alone there are 35,000 beds. Canada, 
Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, India, and the 
whole of the Empire haA'e given with both hands. 

Those of the wounded who can be made well quickly 
enough — and these are, of course, the immense majority 
— go back to their war duties at the front, some eagerly, 
all without murmuring. As they lie there in these won- 
derful huts. In which every provision for speedy con- 
valescence, for happiness, and reasonable amusement are 
afforded, tended as they are by the best surgeons and 
physicians of the English-speaking world, and by ladies 
simply and gently born, they all tell you the same story 
— they would like to get a glimpse of "Blighty" before 
going back again to fight. 

I went on board one of the white hospital ships, 
marked against submarines on each side with a huge red 
cross, to see them going home. Arriving on the quay 
in the British Red Cross and St. John ambulances, and 
gently carried, with the peculiar, slightly swaying walk 
of the trained stretcher-bearer, they pass on to the ship 
and descend in lifts to the particular deck on which is 
their cot or bed. There can be nothing of the kind in 
the world better than these speedy, perfectly lit and 
ventilated vessels. 

Once on board, and yet another stage nearer "Blighty" 
and the beloved ones, all are contentment itself. Some 
of the less injured men were on deck singing merrily. 
Others of the wounded were discussing a newspaper arti- 
cle outlining a project for the settling of soldiers on 
land in the Dominions after the war. "^lany will go to 



THE WAR DOCTORS 225 

Canada; some to Australia, I dare say," said one man; 
"but I am one of those who mean to have a Httle bit of 
'BHghty' for myself. We see enough in France to know 
that a man and his family can manage a bit of land for 
themselves and live well on it." 

I remember a similar conversation a year ago close to 
Ypres, when a young sergeant, who had been a game- 
keeper at home and a working man Conservative, ob- 
served, "The men in the dug-outs talk of a good many 
subjects, but there is one on which they are all agreed. 
That is the land question. They are not going back as 
labourers, or as tenants, but as owners. Lots of them 
have used their eyes and learned much about small 
farming here." 

As I watched the swift ship and saw her speeding 
away to England at well over twenty knots, I wondered 
if people and politicians at home are beginning to under- 
stand that the bravery and camaraderie of the officers 
and men in the field have broken down all class feeling ; 
and that our millions of men abroad are changed com- 
munities of whose thoughts and aims we know but little. 

Just as Grant's soldiers, the Grand Army of the Re- 
public, dominated the elections in the United States for 
a quarter of a century, so will the men I have seen in 
the trenches and the ambulances come home and demand 
by their votes the reward of a very changed England — 
an England they will fashion and share ; an England that 
is likely to be as much a surprise to the present owners 
of Capital and leaders of Labour as it may be to the 
owners of the land. 



THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 



THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 

In the earliest days of the War a beloved only son 
was missing, and his mother asked The Times if it could 
use its organisation in Paris to search the battlefields 
for news of him. One of the members of the French 
staff of the newspaper spent some three weeks in a vain 
endeavour to obtain definite information. That, I be- 
lieve, was the first systematic attempt at what has now 
grown to be a very important branch of Red Cross work. 

Shortly afterwards Lord Robert Cecil went to Paris, 
and I remember finding him busily at work in a small 
room in the Hotel lena. The Department inaugurated 
by Lord Robert has now become one of the many useful 
branches of Red Cross work. Lord Robert early set 
the example of thoroughness for which the department 
is known, for he himself went out personally to search 
cottages and chateaux for men who might have been 
carried there for treatment, and to discover, if possible, 
the whereabouts of the graves of the fallen. 

The news of this errand of mercy which the Red Cross 
Society was speeding travelled swift and far, and soon 
the calls made upon the staff available threatened to 
overwhelm it. The small effort, it was clear, must be 
extended — for the idea of abandoning it was not enter- 
tained. So larger premises were secured and branches 
were opened in Boulogne and other suitable places, and 
a central office was organised in London. Here a large 
number of charitably minded people laboured to carry 

229 



230 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

on the great mass of work which waited upon their ef- 
forts. So fast did the organisation grow that the orig- 
inal accommodation proved quite inadequate. Lord SaHs- 
bury, Lord Robert Cecil's brother, then provided larger 
quarters at his London home, and in February, 191 5, the 
staff was transferred there. 

In July, however, more room had become necessary, 
and then the Duke of Norfolk placed the first floor of 
his residence, Norfolk House, at the disposal of the 
workers. A month later this space was Inadequate. Fi- 
nally, Lord Astor lent his house in Carlton House Ter- 
race, and there the organisation is now housed. The 
prisoners' department has been constituted now as a 
separate system. 

These quick changes of home reveal clearly how 
strong a hold upon the public imagination the new work 
obtained, and how eager all those who had ceased to hear 
from their friends in France, or who knew that their 
friends were among the missing, were to avail them- 
selves of help. They reveal also how thoroughly the 
organisation won the public trust, how efficient it was 
even at the beginning, and how great a want was sup- 
plied by it. 

The principle of working had, of course, to be 
evolved, and the difficulties encountered in the course of 
this work were very many. The first searchers found 
themselves with a list of names, and with the whole of 
war-wracked France in which to search for those men. 
How were they to begin to search? Where were they 
to go? The armies were fully engaged in battles upon 
the issue of which hung the fate of Europe; men had 
small leisure to spare for seeking for fallen comrades. 

It was seen that the first step must be to tap the re- 
sources of the hospitals. Members of the first little 



THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 231 

party with which Lord Robert Cecil was identified began 
to try to gain news of the missing by questioning the 
wounded. Sometimes this method led to nothing, but 
frequently a man would be found who had known the 
lost soldier and marked his fate. In those cases the 
anxieties aroused were answered at once, and fears and 
hopes set at rest; in these cases, too, an indication was 
given as to where the soldier had fallen, if he was dead, 
so that steps could be taken to mark his burial place. 

This identification of graves was carried on until the 
end of 19 14, when it ceased to be part of the duty of the 
department, the War Ofiice having appointed a Graves 
Registration Commission under Brigadier-General Fa- 
bian Ware. A close connexion, however, subsists be- 
tween the Commission and the Red Cross Department. 

It was an obvious step from this to instal "watchers" 
in all hospitals. These watchers were given lists of 
names of missing men, and it was their duty to ask new 
patients if they knew of anything of these men, to note 
down their answers and to forward them to headquar- 
ters. 

On my last visit to Boulogne I spent a morning ex- 
amining the organisation of a hospital ship, and was 
especially attracted to the work of a searcher — a Roman 
Catholic priest, the member of a well-known family — 
who, note-book in hand, was interrogating group after 
group of the lightly wounded on their way to "Blighty." 
He very kindly showed me the result of his morning's 
work, and it occurred to me then that the public might 
care to read a selection of these war dramas in miniature. 
At the end of this chapter I have appended a few that 
tell their own story, in the official language of the re- 
porter, and also in the simple words of the bereaved. 

This system formed the backbone of the whole organ- 



232 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

isation, and upon this system the organisation is based at 
the present day. As a system it has been brought to 
great perfection; every fragment of information is col- 
lected; the information is sent out in language which 
can be understood by the least educated and by those who 
are bewildered by sorrow. Moreover, testimonials to 
the daring and devotion of the fallen are gathered, to 
their endurance under suffering, and to the manner in 
which their comrades risked and even lost their lives to 
save them from suffering, death or captivity. No letter, 
however trivial, remains unanswered; no enquiry, how- 
ever difficult, is neglected. 

Some of the tributes sent by comrades are documents 
of strange appeal. 

"Lieutenant ^" wrote a private in his regiment, 

"was acting fine. The regiment went on about 20 yards 

from where he fell and took cover. Private got 

permission to go back to him and take his identity disk 
and his revolver." 

"Your brother," wrote another soldier, "was a grand 
officer; his men would have followed him anywhere. 
He fell in the thick of it." And an officer wrote of one 
of his men, "He was a hero; he was an example to all 
of us." It is not difficult to understand how these sim- 
ple expressions written by comrades who have shared the 
same dangers bring a measure of consolation to the fa- 
thers and mothers of our heroic dead. 

Each enquiry is filed separately and becomes soon a 
dossier; the moment any piece of information is received 
by the Bureau it is transmitted to the friends of the sol- 
dier. These dossiers are human documents of rare in- 
terest which none can read unmoved ; they reveal, too, in 
convincing fashion the extraordinary amount of care 
and thought which is expended upon the work of tracing 



THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 233 

and searching for the missing. Indeed in this organisa- 
tion is to be found the newest and noblest form of de- 
tective enterprise, as full of thrills and surprises, of close 
deductive reasoning and resourceful cleverness as the 
memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. 

Here, for example, is a case selected at random from 
among the hundreds, nay thousands, which have been 
filed. The missing man may be called Private Smith. 
On the 1st of October, 191 5, the Bureau received the 
following letter concerning him : — 

I should feel most thankful to you if you could 
possibly trace any news of my dear son reported 
"Missing" at the Dardanelles in August. I have 
tried myself but failed. 

The enquiry was put in hand at once, and Private 
Smith's name added to the hospital lists. But on De- 
cember 13th the desired information was still lacking. 
Nevertheless it was possible to report : — 

Private Roberts now in hospital abroad states 
that about 3 days after the landing they were ad- 
vancing across a plain to go to the first line trenches 
when the Turks opened fire on them. Our in- 
formant was with your son until they had crossed 
the plain but did not see him fall. The stretcher- 
bearers never found him, and it was probable, there- 
fore, that he had crawled into the long grass and so 
got out of sight. If this account is accurate it 
seems to suggest that your son has been made a 
prisoner by the Turks, and in this hope and belief 
we are continuing to make every possible enquiry 
with regard to the matter, and will at once com- 



234 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

municate with you if any further or more reassur- 
ing news comes to hand. 

The reply to this letter shows how much relief it 
brought to the boy's mother ; she wrote : — 

I received your welcome letter. I am very grate- 
ful to you. I can assure you I shall wait very anx- 
iously for any fresh news of my dear son, who seems 
to have been spirited away from me. 

The next letter the mother received was dated Decem- 
ber 22nd. It ran: — 

We have received information stating that Pri^ 
vate X., who was taken to X Hospital, would be able 
to give you information about your son. 

Then on January 4th, the Bureau wrote further : — 

We have received another report which tends to 
confirm the possibility of your son having been 
taken prisoner by the Turks. Private Y states as 
follows: — "I was a machine-gun driver. We were 
ordered to advance, to take up a fresh position in 
the centre at Suvla Bay. The sergeant and Smith 
got too far. Two were wounded and the gun and 
two tripods were lost, and we were ordered to retire. 
The ground which was open was occupied by the 
Turks. I went out again by daylight, and also by 
night, but could find no trace of the sergeant or 
Smith. I believe they were taken prisoners. I 
knew Smith well; he came from , was of me- 
dium height, and clean-shaven." 



THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 235 

The evidence seemed now to be tending to the prisoner 
of war theory, but still a great load of anxiety lay on the 
mother's mind. After seeing her son's friend in hospital 
and receiving this letter, she wrote: "It seems a num- 
ber of people saw him up to a certain point and then 
missed him, which leaves a terrible doubt as to whether 
he was killed or taken prisoner." 

Confirmation of the reports already given was received 
in February in the shape of another statement, but the 
Bureau added : "Up to the present, however, we have 
not been able to obtain confirmation of these statements 
either from the list of prisoners which have reached us 
so far from Turkey, or from any other source." 

This letter was acknowledged with deepest thankful- 
ness. Then came a bitter blow in the shape of another 
statement. 

They were nearly surrounded. Two were 
known to have been killed. One of them was miss- 
ing at the time, but was found two months later in 
Malta. I believe he had been left for dead, but 
eventually crawled into the Cheshire lines. An- 
other was said to have been wounded in the wrist, 
but has disappeared and so has Smith. 

The outlook was now black indeed. In April, after 
receiving a further statement, the Bureau wrote to the 
soldier's mother : 

We are afraid that there is now little chance of 
your son being a prisoner, as we should have ex- 
pected to have received his name in some of the 
lists which have reached us from Turkey. If, how- 
ever, there are any other enquiries you would like us 



236 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

to make for you, you have only to let us know. In 
the meantime we beg once again to assure you of 
our deep sympathy in the matter. 

No definite information perhaps, but how much bet- 
ter than the utter silence which had baffled the seeker 
before the Red Cross came to her help. At least she 
was able to picture the last hours of her gallant boy 
and to be with him in spirit during the moments of his 
devotion and sacrifice. Nor did the tragic courage of 
the words in her last letter to the Bureau "I am hoping 
still" express in any degree a diminution of the gratitude 
which she felt and acknowledged. 

Many of these dossiers, unhappily, tell only a story of 
sorrow; there are other cases, however, in which the 
miracle longed for so eagerly actually happens, and the 
lost one is discovered. But it must be remembered that 
appeal is not made to the Bureau until the official sources 
have been carefully canvassed and other means have 
failed. In other words, the enquiry in most cases is 
directed to discovering either in what circumstances a 
man came by his death, or whether it is possible that he 
may be a prisoner of war. 

Another case, which affords a good illustration of 
the kind of work being carried on day by day, was first 
brought to the Bureau's notice in April of this year by 
a report from the War Office that Sergeant James was 
missing. "Anything," wrote his wife in asking for 
help, "would be better than this awful suspense." 

Some fifteen days later the Bureau was in possession 
of information which left little or no doubt that the 
poor fellow was killed. "An officer," they wrote, "says 

that during the unsuccessful attack on , as he him- 

.self lay wounded on the ground, Sergeant James came 



THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 237 

up and spoke to him; and that instant the sergeant was 
very badly wounded in the chest. The officer feared at 
the time that your husband was killed, but just at this 
moment the retreat was ordered and the fallen were left 
on the spot." Further, a private gave the same account 
and adds that "from the sudden way in which your hus- 
band fell he was instantly killed. It was," he declares, 
"within 10 yards of the German lines about 4 a.m., and 
bright moonlight. I saw him plainly; he was my own 
sergeant." 

The poor wife, to whom the names of the informants 
were given, verified the story herself in a few days, and 
wrote to the Bureau : 

Words simply cannot express m^ thanks for the 
kindness and attention you have taken on my behalf. 
I am indeed grateful. I am positively sure that if it 
had not been for you I should still be suffering in 
suspense. 

A certificate of her husband's gallantry was after- 
wards sent to her. 

The gratitude of these stricken men and women for 
the help given them is one of the most wonderful fea- 
tures of this work. It is equalled in its beauty only by 
the courage and resignation which are displayed. A 
poor wife who was unable to obtain exact information 
wrote : 

I am broken-hearted at having to confess that I 
have tried my very best to find him and have failed. 
So I shall have to place all my trust in our Heav- 
enly Father and wait. When the war is over he 
may come back to me along with others of our dear, 



238 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

brave men whose wives and mothers have not al- 
lowed their fears to quench their hope. I thank 
you with all my heart, and I pray that God will be 
with you and the good work you are doing. 

Even more touching is this cry of pain, stifled in the 
uttering: "I am very grateful; but, oh it is a bitter end 
to the long, long hoping." And this: "We accept, 
knowing that he did his duty." 

The desire for assurance that the dead man has found 
a grave, and that his grave is being tended, is also con- 
stantly being expressed, and there is a whole world of 
pathos in the reply of a mother who had received a de- 
scription of her son's burial place. "We are all glad 
to know that he lies comfortable." 

It is an inspiring thought that this splendid work of 
seeking is carried out almost entirely by voluntary means. 
How much the success of it is due to Lord Robert 
Cecil's early work has already been indicated. 

It has sometimes been asked why this work is carried 
out by an agency like the Red Cross and not by the War 
Office itself. The answer is, clearly, that no department 
of State could hope to touch the human chord which 
gives this work its greatest value. It would be wrong 
to expect an already overworked War Office to busy it- 
self collecting small personal details, yet it is just these 
details for which all those who have suffered the great 
loss yearn so wistfully. That they should have this 
comfort is surely beyond all dispute. Who, for example, 
would deny to a mother a letter like this? 

We called him "Tom"; he was a dear good fel- 
low. It happened on the left. I saw him fall. So 
far as I could see, it was all over. He himself said. 



THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 239 

"I am done for; go on, lads." The ground where 
this happened was in our possession when I left. 

Indeed, the mother's reply furnishes the complete jus- 
tification for the work being accomplished. "We have 
heard nothing more from the War Office; only that he 
was wounded and missing, and but for your help and 
kindness we should still be waiting in suspense." 

Here are some complete dossiers: 

The Dossier of Pte. J. L. D of the 2nd Black 

Watch 



I. 



28th July, 19 16. 



Could you possibly find out for me the fate of en- 
closed soldier, Pte. J. L. D , 2nd Black Watch, 

Indian Expeditionary Force ? He was wounded on 
January 21st in the Persian Gulf. I am enquiring 
for the family. 

M H . (LadyH.) 

11. 

nth August, 1 9 16. 

We have only received one report as to the above, 
which we now send on to you though we consider it 

most unlikely to be true, as Pte. D 's name is 

not in any list of Turkish prisoners yet received. 

The report comes from Pte. J. R. , and Black 

Watch, and is as follows: 

"On 2 1st January, 1916, in Mesopotamia I saw 
D in the Turkish ist line captured, but trying 



240 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

to get away and calling out, so that he is probably a 
prisoner of war. The English took the position, 
but had to retire for lack of reinforcements." 

We are continuing enquiries in the hope of gain- 
ing more satisfactory information. 
To Lady H . 

IIL 

26th September, 19 16. 

It is with great pleasure that we can now send 

you the news that Pte. D is a released prisoner 

of war and has been invalided to India. We had 
heard nothing beyond the report sent to you on the 
nth August, which we hesitated to believe. This 
good news has come to us from Basra to-day. 

Letters to Pte. D should be addressed with 

full regimental particulars, c/o ''Casualties," Bom- 
bay, and the envelope should be marked in the cor- 
ner "Exchanged Prisoner of War." 

We shall be greatly obliged if you will let us know 
whether Pte. D 's relatives had had any inti- 
mation that he was a prisoner of war, and whether 
he had been able to communicate with them. Such 
knowledge, if you can kindly supply it, may be of 
the greatest assistance to us in comforting other 
anxious relatives. 
To Lady H . 

IV. 

9th October, 19 16. 

Pte. D 's friends have not heard from him 

at all, so that they were very grateful for your let- 



THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 241 

ter and his address. Thank you so much for your 
kind help. Yours truly, 

M H . 

V. 

13th October, 19 16. 

Lady H has made enquiry about my hus- 
band, Pte. J. L. D , 2nd Black Watch. I am 

very pleased to here the news of him. I heard 
from the Office at Perth that he was a released 
Pris. of War, and the 2nd of Oct. I heard again 
that he as a gunshot wound in the head and heel, 
and he is at Colaba War Hospital, Bombay, India. 
I should like to here from him. I have only had 
one card from him since he was wounded, and that 
was to say he was at Bagdad. The last letter he 
wrote was the i6th of Jan. and he was wounded 
on the 2 1st Jan. so its nine months he has been 
wounded I do hope he is getting better I have only 
seen him once in the two years and I have lost my 
Brother and Father since he as been away so I 
have had a great worry and I have three little chiel- 
dren so I do hope he will be spared to see them 
again. I wonder if he is too ill to write as I have 
not heard from him, and do you think he would be 
able to come home if he is well enough and would 
you be able to let me know if he is badly wounded 
as I am very anxious to know after such a long 
time. I should be greatly oblige. 

E. D . 

VI. 

1 6th October, 19 16. 

Your letter of the 13th crossed ours to Lady 
H . Probably by this time you will have re- 



M2 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

ceived the very cheering account of your husband 
which we have sent to her for you. We told her 
that we had received a report through the War 

Office that Pte. D was in Colaba War Hospital, 

Bombay, that his wound was healed and his condi- 
tion good. 

This will comfort you very much as he is evi- 
dently progressing really well. We do not know 
what his movements will be, but if we should hear 
at any time that he has left India, we will let you 
know. 

With many congratulations. 
To Mrs. E. D . 



The Dossier of Flight Sub-Lieutenant C. G., of 
THE Royal Naval Air Service. 

I. 

July 1 8th, 1916. 

With reference to your enquiry for Flight Sub- 
Lt. C. G., Royal Naval Air Service, we have re- 
ceived the following report from Flight Sub-Lt. 
E , now in hospital at Bombay, who states : — 

"About the 20th April, G went up carrying 

food to Kut. He was attacked by a German ma- 
chine. His observer was shot dead, and G • 

had to land in Turkish trenches, and was made a 
Prisoner. The Turks sent for his valise and box 
to Orah and reported that he is well though slightly 
wounded." 



THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 243 

We have not received Flight Sub-Lt. G 's 



name on any Prisoners' List yet, but we will inform 
you as soon as we do so. Prisoners generally are 
not able to communicate with their relations for 
about the first four months. 
To G. H. G., Esq. 

11. 

July 27th, 1916. 

We beg to send you a further report which we 

have received about Mr. G . Our informant, 

who is now in hospital at Alexandria, states : — 

"I saw Mr. G start on the 24th to carry food 

to our chaps in Kut, taking with him as observer, 

Lt. F , from the Nor folks. As they passed 

over the Turkish lines they were attacked by a Fritz 
(Turkish or German aeroplane), the observer was 
killed and Mr. G , who was fired at continu- 
ously, was brought down. Either that day or the 
next, the Turks sent a message by Flag of Truce 

to Commander B that Mr. G was wounded 

and wanted his kit. Everything he had was ac- 
cordingly sent up stream by motor boat to a place 
agreed on where the Turks met it. Commander 
B is now at Zanzibar, East Africa. The rec- 
ords have probably gone to England. Mr. G 

was a most enthusiastic pilot, and when he could 
would go over with food three or four times a day. 
It was no place for seaplanes, and I remember him 
saying the Turks would get him soon, before it 
actually happened." 

This is a more detailed account than the last we 
sent you and tends to confirm that report, and we 



244 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

very much hope that when we obtain full lists of 
the prisoners in the hands of the Turks we shall 
find his name in them. 

Assuring you of our sincere sympathy in your 
anxiety. 

III. 

July 28th, 1916. 

I beg to thank you for your letter of yesterday's 
date giving me much interesting information re- 
garding my son, which has been communicated to 

you by A. J , R.N.A.S. You have been most 

kind in all your efforts in my interest, and I tender 
my thanks to all those who work so unselfishly for 
others. 

Will you please accept the enclosed £25 as a sec- 
ond donation to your funds from Mrs. E. M. G. ? 

Yours faithfully, 

G. H. G . 

IV. 

12. ix. 16. 

I have much pleasure in informing you that 

Flight Lt. C. B. G has been released by the 

Turks. 

He has cabled from Amara under date loth Sep- 
tember that he has been exchanged and is well in 
health. 

Thanking you for your kind efforts on his be- 
half. 

G. H. G . 



THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 24.5 



V. 

September 14th, 1916. 

We are so glad to hear that you have had a 
cable from your son, Flight Sub-Lieutenant C. 
G , Royal Naval Air Service. 

We have also heard from our Office at Basra and 
were on the point of writing to you to say that we 
had heard that he was an exchanged Prisoner of 
War from Bagdad, was quite well, and sailed for 
India in tlie Hospital ship Varsova on September 
loth. 

We do indeed congratulate you. 

This, then, is a labour of love, belonging in its essence 
to Red Cross work as that work has come to be under- 
stood throughout our land. It is a labour which eases 
the sorest wounds of warfare and which indirectly brings 
great comfort to the fighting men themselves, many of 
whom are haunted by the fear of being numbered among 
the lost and so becoming a source of suffering to their 
friends. 

The British soldier needs no advertisement, but it is 
not possible to close this chapter without placing on rec- 
ord the great help which all ranks of the Army give to 
the searchers for information about the missing. No 
trouble is grudged by these men if it is likely to help to 
relieve the burden of their comrades' womenfolk. The 
wounded in hospitals, indeed, seem to forget their own 
pains on the instant when this appeal is made to them. 
Many a sore heart owes its consoling to the action of 
these splendid fellows; and many a wife and mother 



^46 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

treasures to-day as a priceless heritage the letters written 
by them in memory of a fallen friend. "I thought per- 
haps you might like to hear" — the letters often begin, 
and the note of apology frequently runs all through 
them. It is the way of the British soldier; for within 
the breast of a hero he cherishes ever the heart of a little 
child. 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 

THE GERMANS IN SWITZERLAND 
I 

Zurich, Switzerland. 

On leaving- Italy I spent some days in Switzerland 
en route for Spain, and was able to gather a good deal 
of miscellaneous information not without value. 

At night, Ziirich, the first large neutral city in which I 
have been since the beginning of the war, is as bright 
as London was in July, 19 14. Rome, too, is bright, but 
over the Italian capital there is the indefinable atmosphere 
of war. 

In coming up through the Swiss-Italian lakes, we were 
at once among German tourists. At Lugano we saw 
figures familiar enough before the war, the stout, elderly 
German husband, followed at a respectful distance by his 
wife in her atrocious Rcformkleid. It was like going 
back years in one's life. In the train were Germans who 
talked loudly at us, and stared in the German way. The 
dining-car was filled with the usual German advertise- 
ments ; rather amusingly some of them read to-day — the 
Hamburg-Amerika Line with an illuminated picture of 
one of Herr Ballin's ocean monsters on its way to New 
York! 

It was near midnight when we reached Zurich. One 
remembers only the German voices, the electric bright- 
ness of the streets, and the familiar rushing of the river. 

249 



250 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

But It felt like Germany. Next morning, as we woke 
after delightful sleep induced by much journeying, the 
impression was for a moment that of a nightmare. Was 
it Germany, or was it not? On the floor, where it had 
been disrespectfully thrown over night, was the big eider- 
down Federdecke. At my right hand on the wall was a 
prominent notice in large German type: — 

Die Zimmerpreise werden erhoht wenn keine der 
Hauptmahheiten im Hotel genommen wird, auch 
wenn der Preis vorher festgesetzt. 

[The prices of rooms are raised if none of the 
principal meals are taken in the hotel, even if the 
price has been agreed upon.] 

The waiter who brings the coffee speaks German onlyt 

Looking down into the sunny streets at seven in the 
morning, we see a German town alive and busy, neW; 
spick and span, like most German cities. The SfddtiscM 
Strassenbahnen are packed with business men. School 
children are pouring through the streets and across the 
squares. There are the little girls with spectacles, double 
pigtails and knapsacks; big boys with spectacles, socks, 
and bare legs ; students with queer caps. 

Zurich is efficient. It is obviously well managed. 
There are almost as many "Achtung" and "Verboten" 
signs as in Hanover itself. It is so efficient that the lit- 
tle people are dragged out of their beds and sent to school 
at seven in the morning — an hour when other little peo- 
ple in a less over-organised country are prattling and 
bathing as children should. At night they are still about 
at a very late hour. 

All English people have a strange sensation when first 
walking through a German neutral town in war time. 
Little but German is heard. The old familiar "Delika- 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 251 

tessen" and "Bier vom Fass" notices intensify the feel- 
ing. This part of German Switzerland, though by no 
means hostile towards individual Britons or, indeed, 
towards the Empire, is completely German. In Zurich 
the English traveller finds himself cheek by jowl with 
our chief enemy, for the Reichsdentsch population of 
Zurich is large. These "Imperial Germans" are not, as 
a rule, offensive, and are considerably more civil to the 
English than they were before the war. 

The attitude of the German-Swiss was, naturally, anti- 
Ally at first, but it is becoming less and less hostile, and, 
in some ways, positively appreciative. These same good 
people of Zurich, who strike the British visitor as being 
so German, recently besieged the railway station to wel- 
come the passing British prisoners on their way to 
hospitable internment. At some places barriers were 
erected to keep back the crowds who assembled in thou^ 
sands merely to see the trains pass in the middle of the 
night, and to cheer the newcomers. At Ziirich the police 
were powerless, and the enthusiasm for the wounded 
British was delirious. These manifestations of Swiss 
good-heartedness have quite obliterated from the minds 
of British residents the memory of the rough handling 
to which some were subjected at the beginning of the 
war. Even those who, like The Times Correspondent, 
were arrested and kept in custody for various periods 
warmly recognise the friendliness of the Swiss people. 

The German-Swiss, I think, are puzzled about the 
war, and especially about Verdun. On the bookstalls 
you find side by side with more modest collections of 
The Times and of the Continental Edition of the Daily 
Mail, suspicious great piles of the Frankfurter ZeiUmg, 
the Vossische Zeitimg, the Neue Freie Presse, and of all 
the chief German and Austrian newspapers. 



252 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

These same German and Austrian journals and their 
German-Swiss contemporaries gave great prominence to 
the Kaiser's famous February despatch, in which he 
stated that his brave Brandenburgers had stormed the 
"fortress of Douaumont," and suggested that Douau- 
mont was a real fortress commanding the ruined little 
city on the Meuse. 

As I pointed out in a message telegraphed to The 
Times from Verdun early in March, and reprinted in this 
volume, Douaumont is a fort only in name. Six months 
have now elapsed, and the German-Swiss see that all the 
military might of their kinsmen has been without avail. 
The French-Swiss newspapers, in good Fleet-street style, 
are "rubbing it in." They reprint the February head- 
lines of the German newspapers and passages from an 
eminent German military critic who wrote : — 

Verdun is at its last gasp. Even as I write our 
brave troops are probably cjuartered in its houses. 

The only reply from Germany is the monotonous and 
outworn suggestion that the reduction of Verdun is tak- 
ing its normal course. 

It should be borne in mind that the business connex- 
ions and family ties between Germany and German 
Switzerland are nearly as close as those between England 
and Scotland. Yet some of the German-Swiss newspa- 
pers are fair and give both sides a hearing. This is the 
more remarkable, since German propaganda by bribed 
newspaper, kinematograph, advertisement, private letter, 
business threat and bribe never ceases. Through her 
hosts of secret agents Germany hears when this or that 
citizen of German Switzerland has expressed unortho- 
dox views. Within a few hours the culprit receives 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 253 

a private letter carefully controverting his opinions. 

German methods of working upon neutrals have often 
been analysed, but I think the most effective of them are 
still news-twisting and rapidity of publication. In the 
train between Zurich and Berne one bull-necked Hun of 
the commercial traveller type read, too loudly to be 
polite, a German report of the most recent North Sea 
"scrap," not a word about which had arrived from Lon- 
don. As before, the idea of our losses was allowed to 
remain in the German, Austrian, and neutral mind long 
enough to become embedded there. 

Comparison with our belated Admiralty report next 
day showed that the German communique was an artful 
piece of lying, but the lie had a long start, as in the Jut- 
land battle matter. 

Another object of the German propaganda is to give 
the impression that affairs in Germany are going on as 
usual. Throughout Switzerland the great German 
steamship advertisements appear as though the Atlantic 
were still open. The Hamburg-Amerika offices in the 
various towns look as if nothing had changed. The 
Balkan-Zug (Balkan Express) has flaring advertise- 
ments and time-tables posted up on the walls of stations 
showing its route "Berlin-Budapest-Sofia-Konstantino- 
ple." I saw one of them purposely placed beside a mod- 
est announcement of the Great Western Railway "the 
route for England's most historic sites and Cathedral 
Cities." 

There are some faint efforts at British propaganda. 
They might be greatly improved upon and intensified. 
Our "man in the street" may ask why we should trouble 
at all about German Switzerland or Switzerland in gen- 
eral, but Downing-street, I imagine, has reason to know 
otherwise. Nor would Germany be putting in propa- 



254. LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

ganda seven days a week unless she had certain objects 
in view. 

In French Switzerland our French Allies are render- 
ing us great services. They have organised at Geneva 
a series of lectures upon "The Effort of the Allies" by 
eminent French writers and statesmen. The Germans 
have striven to undermine Swiss belief in Allied cohe- 
sion. With true French insight, our friends saw that if 
France bore generous witness to what her Allies have 
done and are doing, her assurance would carry greater 
weight than any assurance which individual Allies could 
give on their own behalf. The result has been a series 
of manifestations of which the effect is not confined to 
French Switzerland. 

French Switzerland Is more fervently and, as I gath- 
ered at a public meeting, more vociferously pro-Ally 
than are some of the Allied countries themselves. Ger- 
man Switzerland is sentimentally pro-German, but, as I 
have said, is striving to be fair. But Switzerland as a 
whole is pro-Swiss "first, last, and all the time," as 
Americans say. 

Of Italian Switzerland I saw little, but I gathered that 
notwithstanding some misapprehensions, there is a gen- 
eral feeling of relief at the knowledge that the comple- 
tion of the defences on the Italian side of the frontief 
has diminished any temptation which Germany may have 
felt to violate Swiss neutrality in that direction. Swit- 
zerland is naturally afraid of Germany and knows her 
well enough to understand that no sentimental considera- 
tion would protect Swiss neutrality, did a definite mili- 
tary advantage seem obtainable. Every step taken by 
France or Italy to deprive the Germans in advance of 
such an advantage, therefore, enhances the security of 
the Swiss. 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 255 

Au fond des choses, I believe it is the championship 
of the cause of little nations by England in the past and 
by the Allies in the present that has most affected the 
attitude of Switzerland. The war has chastened her 
and has caused her to realise her comparative helpless- 
ness, "You are becoming absolutely Germanised," I 
said to a young bank manager who was changing some 
money for me. '*Not at all," he replied. "We admire 
Germany, but her rule would be too rigid for us free Re- 
publicans. We are grateful to England for her protec- 
tion of small nations, but we fear Russia. We have not 
forgotten Russia's visit of a hundred years ago." 

His was a very different tone from that of a German, 
straight from Frankfurt, with the Frankfurter Zeitung 
in his hand, a member of the race which has made Frank- 
furt famous. He was an elderly man, and opened the 
conversation in fairly respectable English by asking if I 
came from England. He proceeded to show me that 
he knew nothing whatever about the war. 

I should have expected this attitude from an ordinary 
German, but here was a Jew, a member of one of the 
most intelligent races of the world, a race that has been 
given quick powers of insight, inference, and deduction. 
Yet he was convinced that Germany had been basely at- 
tacked, that the English Navy was paralysed, that Lon- 
don was almost in ruins, that England was on her last 
legs financially and on the eve of a social revolution, that 
Hindenburg was cunningly drawing Brusiloff and the 
Russians on to their doom. 

Nor was the man without knowledge of England. He 
had been there twice — in London once and once in the 
Isle of Wight. He was especially loud in his lamenta- 
tions over our futile attempt "to starve the women and 
children in Germany," but had nothing to say when I 



256 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

pointed out how Bismarck had treated Paris in 1870. 
He was also particularly angry that the Swiss should be 
making fuzes for our shells, and said that the Swiss were 
as bad as the Americans. I explained that neutral coun- 
tries had often done this kind of thing and that the 
Swiss, by the way, were making aluminum for the Ger- 
man Zeppelins, in whose future potentialities the old 
gentleman had infinite belief. He was especially elo- 
quent over the condition of German finance and the rela- 
tively good position of the mark in Switzerland. 

I asked him if he ever read the English com- 
muniques, which, by the way, seem to be very fully given 
in the German Press. He replied that he did, but they 
were all lies. Verdun, of course, was going all right. 
Germany, he admitted, was suffering from lack of sev- 
eral kinds of food and raw material. He confessed that 
he was glad of the opportunity of getting a few days in 
such a land of plenty as that in which he was travelling. 
He thought the war would last at least till Christmas, 
at which time France would have collapsed and England 
would be asking to be allowed to "go home," to use his 
own words. Germany would not be ungenerous. "I 
am not an annexationist," he added. "It will be enough 
if we retain Antwerp and some control over the manu- 
facturing districts of France and Belgium, with freedom 
of the seas, and big compensation for ill-treatment of the 
German colonies, plus means to complete the direct 
route from Antwerp to Berlin, Constantinople, and Bag- 
dad, with a port at the end of the line." 

The Swiss are better informed than this. They know 
more of the true position and hear constantly of the 
cross-currents in Germany. Swiss workmen have re- 
cently returned from Germany in considerable numbers. 
They prefer the lower wages and the full meals of Hel- 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 257 

vetia to the high pay and low diet of Prussia. They 
have heard of the peace feelers constantly thrown out, 
not only by the German Imperial Government, but by 
some of the Governments of the Federal States. But 
they have not, and cannot have, a clear idea of the deter- 
mination that animates all the Allies, and their very neu- 
trality clouds their perception of the full meaning of the 
war. 

How wide is the gulf that separates belligerent from 
neutral countries is revealed almost painfully to visitors 
by the presence of large numbers of young men in the 
streets. In Rome there are still some, but they are going 
daily. In Paris there are none. Thus when one comes 
first to a neutral country the great space which youth 
occupies in the social landscape is instantly revealed. 
The departure of our youth for camp and battlefield is 
part, a large part, of the price we are paying for our 
freedom; but it is a singular fact that, despite the pres- 
ence of young men, the atmosphere of neutrality is de- 
pressing. 

When passports have been examined at the French 
frontier stations, and the familiar light blue uniforms 
once more predominate, one will breathe again. In these 
great days the breath of war is the breath of life, and 
the spirit of sacrifice is the spirit of regeneration. 

n 

GENEVA 

Propaganda Tricks 

Geneva. 
Much valuable information can be gathered at Ge- 
neva in regard to the two important questions of prison- 
ers and propaganda. 



258 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

Here are the headquarters of the old original Red 
Cross, founded in 1863. It would be impossible in any- 
thing less bulky than a fat quarto to deal with its in- 
numerable energies. From Geneva radiate the com- 
munications on the subject of casualties, prisoners, their 
help, their finance, to every part of the theatres of war. 
The official title of the great Geneva organisation is the 
"Comite International de la Croix Rouge." At the cen- 
tral office are some 300 assistants, voluntary and other, 
English, French, German, Austrian, Swiss, working un- 
der the same roof and labouring to do their best for the 
afflicted, their relatives and friends. 

The extent of part of the work can be gauged from 
the fact that on certain days there are as many as i5,ocx) 
communications passing from one belligerent country to 
another through the office alone. Geneva is probably the 
chief centre of postal communication between Germany 
and England. 

The important task of receiving and correcting the 
lists of prisoners is carried on here under a system that 
is as business-like as the management of a London bank. 
Some idea of the difficulties with which the Geneva 
workers are faced can be deduced from the fact that 
there are already no fewer than 6,000 prisoners of war 
of the name of Martin, a common patronymic both in 
England and in France. 

The Comite International is not merely a passive ma- 
chine. It goes out of its way to search for news of the 
killed, wounded, and missing. If, for example, it no- 
tices in the German communique that an airman has been 
brought down, it communicates with the German authori- 
ties through the German Red Cross at Frankfurt or Ber- 
lin and asks for the name and fate of the airman and his 
observer. The German authorities in this and other 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 259 

matters relating to prisoners are prompt and not unkind. 
They supply Geneva, for example, with a neat form 
giving a full account of any prisoner who has died in 
their hands, with a note from priest or pastor describing 
his last moments. The lists of prisoners in their hands 
are forwarded punctually and are legibly written. 

At the moment of my visit, the latest English list of 
German prisoners arrived by registered post from the 
Prisoners of War Information Bureau, 49, Wellington- 
street, London. It is pleasant to record that it was a 
model of care and accuracy and is so regarded by the 
Swiss authorities. Geneva people, indeed, say that there 
is little to choose in this matter between the promptitude 
and activity of the English and Germans. 

The appeals that reach the Comite International from 
all countries are heartrending. Owing to the violent na- 
ture of modern warfare, the number of permanently 
missing is greater than in previous wars. Soldiers are 
buried by shell and mine explosions, others are perma- 
nently entombed in their dug-outs, and at the Battle of 
the Mame, for example, it is believed that many who 
have never been heard of were drowned. The Geneva 
and other organisations, including the extremely efficient 
one in connexion with the British Red Cross Society, are 
ceaseless in their endeavours to trace every possible miss- 
ing man. 

Apart from the business-like accuracy of the whole 
establishment, it is evident that the strictest neutrality 
is maintained by the ladies and gentlemen who conduct 
this great Swiss undertaking. All the various languages 
used by the belligerents are to be heard about the build- 
ing, and the interests of every country involved are 
doubtless well looked after, if such a precaution be 
xiecessary. 



260 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

The list just arrived from England was explained to 
me by a young Swiss gentleman who was so obviously 
from Oxford that I asked him at which college he had 
been, to which he replied "The House." (Christ Church, 
which is usually referred to thus by undergraduates.) 
None the less, he was strictly neutral in the conduct of 
his department, whatever be his private views of the 
war. 

Before the great struggle, Geneva was one of the 
largest centres for English residents on the Continent. 
A number still remain, but the whole character of the 
town has changed. At the moment, it is one of the 
most curious congeries of human beings in Europe. In 
the course of a single day I encountered Young Turks 
and Old Turks, Egyptian "Nationalists," Rumanians, 
Greeks, Serbs, and Germans and Austrians. Some of the 
latter, not only there but elsewhere in Switzerland, are 
deserters from Germany and Austria. 

The local name for these oddments of humanity is 
meteques. A number of the temporary inhabitants are 
waiting to know to what nationality they belong, as, 
for example, refugees from Trieste, who do not feel 
certain whether they will remain Austrians or become 
Italians. 

The Genevois themselves are almost to a man fer- 
vently pro-Ally. Several spoke very strongly of our 
neglect to combat German propaganda. France took 
the matter in hand a long time ago, and one of the ablest 
French journalists, Stephane Lauzanne, editor of Le 
Matin, after a due period of military service, was sent to 
Switzerland, where he did excellent work. (Since then 
he has been doing equally good work in the United 
States. ) 

A distinguished French-Swiss explained the situation 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 261 

to me in the following words, which I noted at the 
time: — 

The English should realise that Swiss military 
officers are, in the proportion of about three to 
one, pro-German, because they admire German 
military organisation, because some of them have 
German kinsmen, have had German military train- 
ing, or have married Germans. They recognise that 
Germany has perhaps under-estimated her task. 
The German Government, in order to create the 
impression in Switzerland that Gennany is doing 
all the %hting, has made special arrangements, by 
a subvention, to distribute German newspapers and 
illustrated sheets specially throughout Switzerland. 
Look at this [he pointed to the Illustrated Leipzig 
Gazette] ; Switzerland is deluged with it week after 
week. It is beautifully printed in colours, the draw- 
ings are by the best German artists, the photo- 
graphs are printed by a rotogravure. Here, you see, 
are English prisoners, almost unhurt, marching with 
their captors to the camp. Here, in another paper, 
you are being bombed out of your trenches by this 
or that gallant German regiment. We have had a 
little English propaganda here, but your people do 
not seem to study the methods of advertisers as the 
Germans do. German propaganda is ceaseless; 
yours is feeble and intermittent. The German 
propaganda is in the hands of advertising people 
who understand that when an advertiser ceases to 
proclaim the virtue of his wares the sale of them dis- 
appears. 

There are many weak points in the German ar- 
mour in Switzerland and other neutral countries, 



262 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

and they could be pierced by astute people who un- 
derstand the psychology of each particular neutral 
nationality. Germany has always the advantage of 
propinquity in dealing with the Swiss, the Dutch, 
the Swedes, and the Danes. That is a fact that 
should not be forgotten by your propagandists, and 
should cause them to make exertions, greater, even, 
than those of the Germans themselves. 

The force of this pro-Ally Swiss gentleman's remarks 
was borne in upon me when two or three days later I 
read in Le Temps a telegram to the following effect : — 

The organisation for German newspaper distribu- 
tion at Ziirich has presented to the large hotels at 
Geneva a form on which the owner or manager 
states that he is ready to place at the disposal of 
the public, in the reading-room of his hotel, the 
following newspapers and reviews : — Der Tag, of 
Berlin; Frankfurt Gazette, Cologne Gazette, Voss 
Gazette, Tagliche Rundscliau, of Berlin; Fremden- 
hlatt, of Hamburg; Leipzig Latest News, Illustrated 
Leipzig Gazette, Die IVoche (The Week), a Berlin 
illustrated paper; Reclams Universitm, Berlin illus- 
trated journal; Deutsche Politik (German Policy). 

Under the terms of this agreement, it is pointed 
out that the German propagandists will deliver the 
newspapers and reviews free to the hotel, on con- 
dition that their display in the reading-room is 
not charged for. 

The Jourtial de Geneve protests against this latest 
evolution of German propaganda. 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 263 

III 

THE GERMANS IN SPAIN 

The Army of Anti-Ally Workers 

Pamplona, Spain 

Forty-six years ago Germany was at war with France 
over the question of the Spanish marriages and the 
Hohenzollern candidate, the initial cause of the Franco- 
Prussian conflict of 1870. Since that time the Germans 
have never ceased to agitate for the political and com- 
mercial control of Spain. 

During the last two years, despite the war, they have 
managed by a stroke of good fortune, which at first sight 
looked like ill-luck, greatly to increase their numerical 
strength throughout the Peninsula. 

In the last days of July, 19 14, many Germans fled 
from France into Spain. Their number was speedily 
increased by the arrival at various Spanish ports of 
travelling Germans, who remained there, rather than 
face the Anglo-French blockade. When Portugal de- 
clared war there was another incursion of German refu- 
gees. To their number have since been added the Ger- 
man soldiers and civilians from Cameroon. It is said 
that altogether, including the large number of resident 
business Germans, there are now something like 80,000 
Huns in Spain. The total is variously estimated at from 
60,000 to 100,000, but a Barcelona man of afifairs, who 
visits all parts of Spain continually, considers that, in- 
cluding the 20,000 residents of his own city, the number 
is approximately 80,000. That these 80,000 Germans 



264 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

are not idle is borne in upon one within a very few hours 
of crossing the Spanish frontier. 

Let me first ask readers who have not recently visited 
Northern and Western Spain to remove from thdr 
thoughts all ideas gathered from Borrow or Ford, "Back- 
ward Spain," so far as the Northern provinces are con- 
cerned, is the land, not of gipsy, beggar, and brigand, 
but of Spanish, British, German enterprise, of highly-de- 
veloped water-power, countless new light railways, auto- 
mobiles, factories, workshops of all descriptions, and of 
hotels with bed-rooms and bath-rooms en suite. 

Things are nowhere in the world as before the war. 
Thus, it is an unpleasant surprise, on going to a Spanish 
bank, to find that our good British sovereign, which, we 
were proud to think, was the standard coin of the world, 
is at an uncomplimentary discount in a land where one 
formerly received a handsome bonus in exchange. It is 
unpleasant, too, on opening countless Spanish newspapers, 
to find that a belief in German victory and in German 
invincibility is, apparently, a conviction in most parts of 
Spain. It is disappointing to be received by old Spanish 
friends, friends who have visited England, who know our 
country, with an air of doubt as to our capacity to make 
war. It is particularly disagreeable to notice the favour- 
able and agreeable manner in which the Hun is received 
in Spanish society. And it is not flattering to the Allies 
to find that he has the support of a great body of the 
aristocracy, of practically tlie whole of the Church, Jesuit 
and otherwise, with, in addition, a large part of middle- 
class Spain. 

I would not for a minute disregard the strong pro- Ally 
views of many Spaniards, some in important positions. 
We owe them a debt of gratitude. Many are labouring 
assiduously to convince their countrymen of the justice 



NEUTRAL GLIIVIPSES ^65 

of our cause, but they are face to face with the hourly- 
wireless propaganda from the Nauen station, Berlin, and 
the Austrian wireless from Pola. They have to encoun- 
ter all manner of cross-currents beneath the sea of Span- 
ish opinion, and these cross-currents have been forced by 
the Germans till in many cases they have become veritable 
tides of pro-Germanism. 

It would be preposterous for a casual visitor to Spain, 
such as is the present writer, with but some half-dozen 
holiday tours in that coimtry as a previous experience, 
to offer himself as an authority on a very complex sub- 
ject. Yet he can, at least, record that which he hears 
from former Spanish acquaintances, from English and 
other residents, together with that which he reads, that 
which he sees. 

I came here to Pamplona because it is a convenient 
German centre and because it is a pleasant place in a 
fair country. The days of early autumn in Northern 
Spain are crisp, yet warm, like the mimosa time in spring 
at Cannes. The Indian com is now ripe; jasmine in 
great festoons and garlands, as we never see it in Eng- 
land, is everywhere, mixing its fragrance with that of 
the magnolia. The little, low-growing, purple wine- 
grapes in this, the famous Rioja district, are sweet 
enough to steal. 

When one surveys these rich valleys, in which every- 
thing, including olives, bright red capsicums, vines, 
peaches, beets, tomatoes, all seem to luxuriate together 
in wild profusion, it is not difficult to understand why 
the men from the sandy plains of Prussia are covetous. 
There are other reasons of which I shall speak. A glance 
at the map of Europe should be sufficiently suggestive 
of Bismarck's anxieties about the Iberian Peninsula. 

At the Cafe Kutz at Pamplona, which, despite our 



Q66 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

blockade, bravely but falsely advertises Spatenbrau- 
Miinchen on its wide white awning, ma}^ be found after 
Mittagcssen many of the types of the German elements 
that are unceasingly working against us — and against 
Spain. One soon learns from their loud talk that the 
Germans in Spain have constituted themselves into a 
well-drilled army, obviously acting on definite instruc- 
tions. 

Just one typical scene. The Huns who were eating at 
one of the leading hotels to-day, and who had to bear our 
English-speaking as best they could, were probably 
mostly soldiers and civilians back from Cameroon. Their 
leader was a young Prussian of 30, whose neck and head 
were of about the same diameter. He had little. Ori- 
ental eyes, stiff wooden movements, a gash down the 
side of the face, received at a Mensur in student days, 
and hair cropped as closely as a poodle's. 

Pamplona is a great clerical centre. A number of 
young priests were lunching, and heartily, let me say. 
As each left the room the young Boche rose and bent 
himself in half, in German fashion, with a tremendous 
bow, to the evident pleasure of the priests. The thing 
was exactly like the official railway courtesy ordered by 
telegram from Berlin to any more or less known foreign 
traveller, and at the same time showed the minute care 
with which the German army In Spain is working. With 
the Church on their side, the battle is half won. Later 
on, the same young Boche was one of a large company 
of noisy, hat-lifting Germans at the Kutz establishment, 
and it was amusing to notice that, as a flock of the black- 
robed fathers strolled by in an unmasculine costume 
(which is certainly not suited to Spanish heat and dust) 
the Huns cast amused and contemptuous glances behind 
their backs, and made slighting remarks about them. 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 267 

From a Spanish acquaintance, who is not a little con- 
cerned at the growing intensity of German activity in 
Spain, I learned a good deal of the habits and customs 
of the propagandists, for such every one of them is. 

Germany long ago impressed Spain with the prestige 
of her arms and her trade. On the Norte Railway the 
finest locomotives bear the name of their German place 
of origin, in legible letters, that can be read by passen- 
gers on both of the station platforms. At one time Span- 
ish locomotives came from England. In the home, or 
the hotel, there is nearly always a German piano, a Ger- 
man bath, and you switch on a German electric lamp to 
see the time by a German clock. The chemists' shops are 
full of German drugs and preparations. 

A vast, new, many-windowed, oblong, ugly, industrial 
building looms up before you at the corner of a road, 
and you find that it is a sugar factory erected by Ger- 
mans, since the war. 

The average Spaniard, who is more of a cahdlero than 
a man of business, is naturally impressed by years of 
German commercial surroundings. Many Spanish busi- 
ness men are frankly afraid of Germans. 

The khaki-clad officers and men of the Spanish Army 
—especially the younger officers — looking uncommonly 
like our Belgian Allies except for the shape of their caps, 
are, I was assured by Spanish officers, convinced that 
Germany must win. 

From the moment of the outbreak of war every Ger- 
man refugee as he arrived was set to work to learn 
Spanish. Many of them had fled into Spain so hurriedly 
that they were without funds, and these were provided 
by the local German Consuls. But the invaders were not 
long idle. The majority obtained work in the innumer- 
able establishments of their compatriots, some in Barce- 



268 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

lona, some at Seville, some in the iron districts, others 
in the countless industries in Spain into which the Ger- 
man vampire has dug its claws. A few, it is believed, 
have availed themselves of their knowledge of Spanish 
to escape, as Spaniards, to South America, to Holland, 
and to Scandinavia. For the purpose of such adventur-' 
ous journeys they buy up old passports, or make use of 
others, manufactured for the special purpose. 

But, as a rule, the Germans in Spain show no great 
anxiety to get back to the land of the meatless day and 
the bread-ticket. They look prosperous and well-fed, and 
they are unquestionably helping to get Spain into the 
German clutch. They realise that if to a victorious Ger- 
many Spain is very useful, to a defeated Germany Spain 
is almost essential. 

In the likely event of the development of overland 
transport by aeroplane, the coasts and harbours of 
friendly Spain would be invaluable to Germany. The 
mineral wealth of the Peninsula only now being scien- 
tifically developed, would afford her several sorts of raw 
material, of which Germany has little or none. And, 
as an outlet for German goods, as the main point of de- 
parture for the wealthy Republics of South America, as 
a bulwark against English control of Gibraltar, Spain is, 
from the German point of view, distinctly Germany's 
"pidgin." 

The well-drilled battalions of German residents and 
refugees in Spain know exactly how to confuse public 
opinion in any locality. In the North of Spain, where 
the French have never been popular since the Napoleonic 
invasion, they alarm the ignorant by threats that an Al- 
lied victory might mean a revival of the days of a hun- 
dred years ago. In the West they state that, as a re- 
ward for Portugal's "treachery" in joining the Allies, 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 269 

she is to be given two of the richest Spanish provinces. 

Lately Spain became anxious on this point, coupled as 
it was with the statement that the Portuguese Army was 
mobilised against Spain. The Portuguese Government 
wisely asked Spain to send a military mission to inspect 
the situation. There was not, of course, a word of truth 
in the statement, which was industriously promulgated 
by one of the most widely circulated Madrid newspapers, 
the A. B.C., which, under a cunning pretence of neutral- 
ity, is, as I can easily prove by its files, subtly and con- 
tinually pro-German. 

In the south "Gibraltar for the Spaniards" remains 
the most successful German cry, appealing as it does to 
Spanish pride and sentiment. The Moroccan question 
and the Moroccans themselves are never let alone by 
Germany. The suggestion is continually put forward, 
too, that Germany stands for monarchy, order, and re- 
ligion; whereas England is the home of free speech and 
industrial unrest, and France the centre of anarchy. 

Next to our own island, Spain is the chief mother 
country of the world. Here and there the Spaniards ex- 
hibit maps showing to what parts of the earth Spanish 
stock has carried the Spanish language. With the lan- 
guage has gone a certain amount of sympathy for Spain. 
The Germans know that, with Spain as a point d'appiii, 
and the backing of Spanish opinion, and, above all, with 
that of the Church, their cause is likely to be better ap- 
preciated in the New World than if mother-Spain were 
hostile. From Spain, therefore, proceeds to South Amer- 
ica a great deal of German propaganda in the Spanish 
language. 

Although many war fortunes are being made in Spain 
— for she is supplying iron to England, railway trucks 
and war material of other descriptions to France — some 



270 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

discomfort has been caused by the war. One of the most 
unpopular topics in Spain is the high price of bread. An- 
other is the cost of coal, which in some places stands 
at $30 a ton. These circumstances are used by the Ger- 
man agents to stir up feeling against England for her 
wickedness in launching the world into war. 

The chief methods of propaganda, then, seem to be a 
daily stream of wireless commimiqiws from Berlin and 
Austria, discrediting the Allies; continuous activity on 
the part of the Church and the Carlists; the influence of 
the German "colony," with steady work on the part of 
the university professors and schoolmasters on behalf 
of the Central Powers, the chief channel being, of course, 
the Press. There are notable exceptions, such as the 
Imparcial, El Liberal, Heraldo, and others engaged in 
sustained effort to put the truth about the war before the 
Spanish public. These efforts have, especially of late, had 
a considerable amount of success, and have aroused Ger- 
man hostility, as will no doubt this and another article 
of mine. A small, but, it is to be hoped, a growing part 
of Spanish opinion is disgusted wnth German cruelties, 
and more especially with the wholesale enslavement of 
Belgian and French women in the invaded provinces. 
There has been talk in the English newspapers of a re- 
monstrance by the Spanish Government in this matter, 
but in the absence of much stronger pro-Ally propaganda 
and much firmer British diplomacy, it would be surpris- 
ing were anything really important to result. ^ 

Let me give a few instances as showing the methods 
of presenting news to the Spanish public by certain jour- 
nals. In all the neutral countries German Press agents 
represent England as cowering under the Zeppelin terror. 

^ Some sort of notice seems, very privately, to have eventually 
been taken. 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 271 

To-day, in one newspaper, I read of a great Zeppelin raid 
on London, and of orders by the Metropolitan Police that 
not a single ray of light was to be emitted at night, either 
out of doors or indoors. This news was prominently 
given — but not a word was said in this journal about one 
of the raiding Zeppelins having been destroyed. 

In one of our Headquarters comnmniqiies the other 
day it was stated that we brought down a certain number 
of enemy aeroplanes. The communique was so put as to 
give the impression that we had lost the aeroplanes, and 
the heading was, "The British Communique. Ten Aero- 
planes Lost." 

This sort of thing, carried on day after day and week 
after week by innumerable journals among a people who 
have had German efficiency drilled into them for years, 
is a sort of poison that will only be removed by some 
great military success on our part. Verdun has done as 
much as anything to cure a certain part of Spanish public 
opinion of the "German invincibility" theory. (It is in- 
teresting, by the way, to note here, in Pamplona, a Ger- 
man centre, little books for sale, with the head of the 
Kaiser so drawn as to look like a skull on a background 
of blood, entitled simply, "Verdun.") Former Spanish 
acquaintances of pro-German views admitted to me that 
Verdun was puzzling to them. 

As elsewhere, the view is industriously spread by 
Germany that England is the sole and only cause of the 
war, and that the unfortunate French are only too anx- 
ious to make peace. England, the might of whose army 
is absolutely unknown to the average Spaniard, is rep- 
resented as sacrificing France, as she is alleged to have 
sacrificed Belgium, Serbia, Montenegro. If, runs the 
argument, Spain were so mad as to join the Allies, her 
fate would be that of France and the rest ; and if she were 



272 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

even to exhibit friendly neutrality civil war would result. 
The leading Carlist papers have recently headed their ar- 
ticles "Neutrality or Civil War!" 

Another line taken by German propagandists, chiefly 
among the aristocratic classes, is that Spain should keep 
herself strictly impartial, so that, if necessary, King Al- 
fonso and his Cabinet may perhaps be invited by Great 
Britain to arbitrate when we sue for peace with Ger- 
many. That we shall eventually invite the Spanish Court 
to save our face seems to be accepted by all except the 
inner circle, who know some of the facts. 

One of these facts is that the Germans in 191 6 in- 
duced a well-known Spanish nobleman to go to London 
to fly a peace kite, and that, on his arrival, those to whom 
he was accredited wisely took not the least notice of him. 
The Germans now assert that the unfortunate Spaniard 
went to London on his own account. 

From much that I have heard in the course of my 
enquiries, the Spanish Court would be the very worst 
arbiter between the Allies and the Central Powers. 
Whatever may be King Alfonso's own knowledge, the 
views of the average Court official are something like 
these : — 

"English officers are gallant fellows, excellent polo 
players, good sportsmen in general, but amateurs. The 
English 'Tommies' are few in number, brave, but fool- 
hardy. The 'bloody repulses' so often mentioned in the 
German communiques are due to the fact that an army 
cannot be raised in a few years. France has called up 
all her men from 17 years of age to 48. England can do 
nothing on land of any service. Therefore Germany is 
bound to win, and even if she does not win, cannot pos- 
sibly lose." 

I am informed that a Spanish military mission has been 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 273 

sent to British military headquarters. It is to be trusted 
that it will have come back with opinions that may some- 
what change this Court point of view, though I am doubt- 
ful of the lasting effect of anything short of a smashing 
and palpable military defeat of Germany — one that can- 
not be disproved by wireless. 

Former Spanish acquaintances regard me as some- 
thing of a hero in venturing across the German subma- 
rine-controlled Channel at this juncture. Others doubt 
that I really propose to go back to live and work in 
Zeppelin-infested London. One hears all sorts of stupid 
nonsense, from people who ought to know better, such as 
the statement that Princess Henry of Battenberg, mother 
of the Queen of Spain, has come to Spain for safety from 
Zeppelins. These views would be merely annoying were 
it not that they have a bearing on Spanish opinion dur- 
ing the war and on the theory of German invincibility. 

A good deal of travel among neutrals lately has borne 
in upon me the fact that no one wants to be on the losing 
side. It is obviously with this view in mind that Ger- 
many keeps her 80,000 agents in Spain at work, hiding 
Allied successes and belittling the British effort. A shrewd 
Englishman of business in Spain — and we have many 
such — assured me that he believed the present melan- 
choly state of our good English pound sterling was due 
not only to the balance of trade against us, but to the 
doubt as to our capacity to stand up against Germany. 
Former Spanish admirers who have been impressed by 
the German propaganda are politely silent when some 
idea is given them of the determination of Great Britain 
and her Allies to crush the vampire. 

Pro-Ally Spaniards say that immeasurable harm was 
done in the long months during which the British Army 
issued no daily communique whatever. The impression 



274 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

was then almost indelibly confirmed that we had no 
Army. Yet during all that time we had talcen our part 
in the battles of the Marne, the Aisne, and Ypres. 

There are quick minds at the other end of the German 
wireless and they watch our proceedings very closely. 
They flood Spain with downright lies, minimising state- 
ments and contradictions with a celerity which is quite 
amazing. I have been so struck again and again by the 
quickness with which neutrals learn from Germany what 
is going on, that I recently asked Commendatore Mar- 
coni if it were possible that the Germans had a secret 
wireless in our midst. He replied tliat it would be quite 
possible for them to have wireless apparatus, that it 
would be very difficult to detect, and that he himself 
would be able to erect a wireless in England that our 
authorities would have great trouble in discovering. But 
it is certain that what we are, in reality, face to face with, 
is great alertness and intelligence on the part of the 
German Press Bureau. 

The Germans in Spain have wealthy people among 
them who have seen to it that the various German com- 
munities and individuals are closely linked up. The 
newcomers are gathering every sort of information about 
Spanish industries and the possibilities of development in 
Spain. Need I point out that, with a population of less 
than twenty millions, 80,000 active propagandists and 
workers constitute a formidable body? 

The number may be 80,000, it may be slightly more 
or less, but the Hun seems to be everywhere. Almost 
the first words I heard in Spain were German. Seven out 
of ten of the numerous provincial journals are, more or 
less, Germanophile. 

In a motor journey of some 1,300 kilometres I encoun- 
tered German pedestrian and motor parties all bound on 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 275 

the same purposeful work. Their task is the easier be- 
cause the general Spanish public is not vastly interested 
in the war. In Spain it is not the vital question that it 
is in England, in France, or even Switzerland. In the 
newspapers our Great Crusade often takes quite a minor 
position, and in the majority there is more about the bull 
fight or the latest crime than about the greatest event in 
the world's history. 

IV 

A SPANISH TOUR 

Some People and Places 

While it is difficult for any one who has seen any- 
thing of the horrors of the German invasion of Belgium 
and France to comprehend the neutral frame of mind, 
it has to be remembered in visiting and contrasting Spain, 
where there is no sign of conflict, that her people are 
at peace. 

A few of the more far-seeing Spanish leaders do not 
quite like that situation. There is a good deal of jealousy 
of little Portugal, who has not been afraid to throw down 
her glove to the Kaiser. But, on the whole, Spain in 
general, and industrial Spain in particular, appears to be 
glad to be out of the maelstrom. 

In the course of visits extending over 30 years I have 
never known such prosperity in Spain as at present. 
With the exception of a few old women who haunt the 
doors of cathedrals and a single gipsy, who, by the way, 
asked alms in very fair German — imagining, I regret 
to say, that our party was from the Fatherland — we were 
not assailed by a single beggar anywhere. Good for- 



276 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

tune seems to smile everywhere alike, in town and coun- 
try. San Sebastian and other watering-places are having 
seasons such as they have never known before. In more 
than one of the excellent motorists' hotels erected during 
the past few years we found it difficult to obtain sleeping 
quarters. 

On setting out on a visit to the iron districts, we made 
the journey by the wonderful coast road zna Zarauz, Bil- 
bao, and Santander, certainly the most majestic, if dan- 
gerous, cliff road I have travelled in a somewhat exten- 
sive experience. The Bay of Naples, the road from 
Larne to Portrush, or the Grande Corniche cannot com- 
pare with it. The only drawbacks are the dust and nerve- 
racking corners, round which tear high-powered cars, 
with open exhausts, at a speed that reminds one of the 
Continental road races of a decade back. 

There is a noise like that of a Zeppelin, or a traction 
engine. Our modest 20 h.p. car is passed as if standing 
still, and then dust, that completely obscures the view of 
sea and sky. 

"The King!" cries our chauffeur. His amiable Maj- 
esty is en route. Youth will be served. Further on we 
find a powerful Royal car — not, fortunately, Alfonso's — 
in a ditch, with the two front wheels off. A day or two 
afterwards the Spanish papers record yet another and 
serious accident to certain members of the Royal en- 
tourage. 

In numberless ways it is a strange sensation to be 
living in surroundings not unlike those of the Riviera 
years ago in peace time. The white wings of the racing 
yachts are in the bay, golfing and lawn tennis parties are 
setting out for the day's sport, immaculately-dressed 
young Spaniards, with Bond Street and Savile Row writ- 
ten all over their clothes, are escorting Senoritas, dressed 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 27T 

from the Rue de la Paix. The whole thing, against the 
background of the war, is like a dream of something long 
past. 

The road continues, one long film of beautiful pic- 
tures, though it passes through the iron districts leading 
to Bilbao and beyond. There is nothing in the nature 
of a black country, or manufacturing Lancashire, or 
chemical Cheshire. Now and then one is on the Riviera, 
in a few moments in the sad mountains of Donegal. The 
hot southern sun blazes down on little inland coves of 
the Atlantic, in which are ensconced tiny watering-places ; 
but there are no wounded, as in France or at home. 
Villas, embowered in walnut and chestnut trees, with gar- 
dens gay with red and white roses, and the universal 
jasmine and pink oleander, have carefully closed persi- 
ennes to keep out the mid-day heat. 

As one approaches Bilbao the hills are red with the 
iron-laden soil; from beneath them is brought down by 
vertical railway and wireways the metal for the guns and 
the shells. The rivers and their estuaries pour, brilliant 
red, into the great Atlantic. One of our party remarked 
that, if any one painted this contrast of sea and river, 
he would be regarded as an unusually eccentric Futurist. 
It was pleasantly cool sauntering along, but when we 
stopped for luncheon at Bilbao, the centre of one of the 
richest mineral territories in the world, we found that 
the day was as hot as midsummer at home. 

In the restaurant our next neighbour is a stout German 
lady, whose performance on the tooth-pick would have 
done credit to a restaurant in the Friedrichstrasse in 
Berlin. We English speakers receive the usual glares 
from the Germans, who are sharing the excellent meal 
provided. 

Afterwards, a Spaniard to whom we have an introduc- 



S78 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

lion, complains of the Allies' commercial black-list. We 
point out that war is war, and that the saving of Allied 
lives and the destruction of enemy trade is more im- 
portant to us than commercial relations with neutrals. 
His reply is that the rule should be applied all round, 
and especially to certain iron mines which are conjointly 
owned by Germans and English, and he mentions Krupp 
and an English firm by name. He admits that the dis- 
trict is largely Germanophile, and he believes that con- 
siderable iron is going into Germany by Norway. This 
statement is afterwards denied, although not absolutely, 
by an English authority whom we consulted. 

After sauntering through an incredibly beautiful coun- 
try, with delicious glimpses of the Atlantic, passing rivers 
in which the trout were rising temptingly, and one in 
which there was excellent salmon fishing, we slept at 
Oviedo, at a palatial hotel as unlike the Spain of 20 years 
ago as could be imagined. At the local garage there was 
an assemblage of motor-cars of the first rank, and not one 
of them, we are glad to say, was German. Rolls-Royce, 
Renault, Delaunay-Belleville, Daimler, and the Hispano-' 
Suiza predominated. 

There is an old Oviedo and a new which is being built 
as rapidly and noisily as new New York, and as ugly as 
new Buenos Aires. 

Wakened in the morning by the sound of blasting in 
the neighbouring hills, a sound that is never out of one's 
ears in industrialised Spain, we crawled up the zigzags of 
the great Cordilleras Cantabricas, and suddenly de- 
scended from the dense, wet clouds into what was exactly 
like Egypt. Red and ochre hills, a great blazing, yellow 
plain, dried-up looking towns on the hillside, pigeon cotes 
exactly like those in Egyptian villages, and water raised 
by shadoofs. The wheat has been gathered, and in some 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 279 

places is being trodden out, as in Biblical times. In all 
places it is winnowed in the wind, in ancient fashion. 

Out on the plain the only birds are hawks and quail- 
like partridges, with also our own red-legs. We stopped 
the car outside an adobe hut of Moorish design, thiclc- 
walled and very cool within. The bright-eyed, dark, 
dry-skinned peasant, who comes out to tell us the way, 
invites us to taste some of the wine grapes which, to- 
gether with some quinces, he is growing in his little oasis. 
He is extremely intelligent, declines any payment, as is 
usual in rural Spain, but accepts a cigar and a few picture 
papers — for he cannot read — and asks us about the war. 
It has had the effect of raising the price of bread. The 
land as far as we can see, he tells us, belongs to a great 
nobleman, and is worked on a feudal system. Owing to 
the emigration to South America, labour is scarce, and 
he and his work doubly hard in consequence. It would 
be good land, he says, if the rain were attracted by the 
planting of more trees. The war, he fears, will be long. 
His good manners, which previous experience has taught 
me to find everywhere and among all classes in Spain, 
forbid him expressing an opinion as to the result. 

Later on that day a similar enquiry as to our route 
from an old labourer brought the question : Were we 
French? "No," we replied, "English." He put out his 
hand and shook ours warmly, saying that he had been in 
the service of an English family in Buenos Aires. And 
the war? How long will it last? Long, he feared. 
"The Allemans are strong." 

There is no country in which I have been where one 
is asked so frequently: How long will the war last? 
The war seems to be some great distant monster which, 
despite the people's interest in their own ever}^day life, 
is ever, if distantly, present. 



280 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

The dust between Albert and Arras, in the earher days 
of the battle of the Somme, when thousands of troops, 
transport wagons, and mules were stirring it, seemed to 
be, to use an Americanism, the "extension of the limit." 
Egyptian dust is perpetual and insinuating, and Indian 
dust is like khaki flour. But Spanish dust, in August, 
when a Norther is blowing, amounts to something like 
a perpetual fog. A closed car is of no avail; goggles 
worn within it are useless. A passing mule can raise 
a cloud of it, and it was consoling to think, whatever 
may be the difficulties in front of our soldiers in that part 
of the map in which Sir Douglas Haig and General Foch 
are operating, a war in this part of the world would be 
worse, a veritable agony of thirst. 

Yet, little more than a hundred years ago, the great 
Duke's soldiers drove Soult's forces across waterless 
plains similar to these, at a time when there were none 
of the comforts of mechanical transport. 

The contrast between the peace and gaiety of small 
Spanish towns at night, and our thoughts of France at 
this time is trying. Yet no one who has been in a neu- 
tral country would wish to live in its atmosphere rather 
than in that of England or of her Allies. These Spanish 
towns are alive with children, who, having like all Span- 
iards, enjoyed their siesta, appear to go to bed about the 
time people are pouring out of the theatres in London. 

Almost every small centre has an excellent band, whose 
only fault is the monotony of its mournful, modern Span- 
ish music, which seems to be almost always written in 
the minor. It is that of a people resigned to their lost 
position as conquistadores. 

Often, it is pleasant to note, we came across places in 
which there were not only no Germans, but no knowledge 
of Germans, In some districts where there were Ger- 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 281 

mans the people were perfectly frank in their dislike of 
them. The Spaniards are extremely good mimics, and 
can imitate German ways in a most amusing manner. 

Enquiries and researches in a good many quarters, 
every one of which revealed the same steady German 
purpose, brought us eventually back to San Sebastian, 
which many of its admirers claim, perhaps with reason, 
to be the most beautiful seaside resort in the world. San 
Sebastian to-day is humming with life and visitors. On 
the way into the town we meet a small English jockey, 
heavily swathed, toiling at least four miles an hour in 
the afternoon sun, to reduce his weight for the racing, 
which takes place almost daily. The local bull ring is 
packed, and an attempt to get a seat for a pelota match 
was in vain. 

Although the Spaniards are still the proud people they 
have always been, there is that curious mixture of de- 
mocracy that makes San Sebastian a combination of 
Monte Carlo and Margate. The King and his yacht 
are here. Most of the Embassies have moved here from 
Madrid. All Spain that counts fills the beautiful villas 
on the hills, and the densely packed hotels. In the morn- 
ing the perfect sands swarm with children. 

Along the promenade that leads to Miramar, outside 
which lounge his Majesty's guards in picturesque red Bis- 
cayan caps, there is an endless procession of tramcars 
and motors, mingled with slowly moving, yoked oxen, 
and the perpetual donkey of the peasant, as often as 
not ridden pillion. The casino is, of course, the main 
attraction of this very rapidly growing town. In the 
gaming rooms, as at Monte Carlo, are the same shabby 
old ladies, with solemn faces, deliberately placing their 
five pesetas, with the other and younger ladies, who 
throw their money away as rapidly as they get it. Here 



282 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 

and there is an Englishman, who looks thoroughly 
ashamed at being caught gambling in war-time, with the 
customary wizened old men, studiously working out their 
systems. There are Germans here, as everywhere, but 
they chiefly have their headquarters at their own cafe in 
the town. A German in Spain is not, as a rule, on pleas- 
ure bent. 

A pleasing and quite harmless feature of the casino 
at San Sebastian is the organised gathering of hundreds 
of children on the great terrace outside, and in the rooms 
not devoted to gambling. The absence of black in the 
women's and children's dresses is a striking contrast to 
one who has just come from France, anci, were it not for 
an occasional mantilla, there would be nothing but the 
vivid greens, yellows, and blues that sound so bizarre, but 
are not out of place in Spain, where the national colours 
of red and yellow fit the landscape as properly as do the 
green, white, and red of sunlit Italy. The Spaniards 
make much of their children. Sometimes one feels that 
the small people are a little out of place at the hotel din- 
ner hour, which is usually at 8.30 or 9 o'clock. As a rule 
the children are beautifully dressed, well cared for, most 
attractive, and altogether sans gene. When we asked a 
Spanish friend why that vivacious and quick-witted crea- 
ture, the chico (the Spanish boy) develops so quickly 
into something like apathetic languor, he replied it was 
"the education." Certainly the contrast between the early 
manhood of Spain and the alertness of the boys is very 
remarkable. 

San Sebastian is itself solemnly and particularly in- 
teresting to English people, who have a pilgrimage of 
their own near by. 

And so, leaving the Casino, with its myriads of little 
ones, who were being entertained by the sending up of 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 283 

grotesque fire balloons, in the shape of all manner of 
animals and black men, and escaping from the noise of 
the two rival bands, we said good-bye to neutral Spain 
by visiting the scene of the famous and gloriously vic- 
torious storming of the citadel in 1813, when our soldiers 
showed exactly the same qualities they are displaying on 
the Somme to-day. They crossed the river under a ter- 
rible fire, which filled it with English blood. They per- 
formed what seemed the impossible, and what was almost 
as remarkable as Wolfe's attack on Quebec. 

At the summit of the citadel are a few English graves, 
which seem somewhat more neglected than they should 
be. From this lofty scene of the great struggle they look 
straight out towards the Bay of Biscay to England. The 
most legible inscription is as follows : — 

Sacred to the memory of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir 
Richard Fletcher, Bart.; Captain C. Rhodes, Captain 
G. Collyer, Lieutenant H. Machell, Corps of Royal 
Engineers, who fell at the siege of San Sebastian, 
August 31, 1813. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent; Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: 

Preservationlechnoiogies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Tovmship, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 



